League: Collapse bad for the game

Australia 44 Great Britain 4

Great Britain's Tri-Nations final loss to Australia is the worst possible result for league as an international attraction.

The Lions had shown so much promise, but started with poor discipline to concede penalties and territory, and the Kangaroos cut them to pieces to lead 38-0 at halftime.

Darren Lockyer underlined his status as world's best, dominating the game. The Australians played as if their lives depended on it, holding Great Britain's hooker Terry Newton up in goal late in the game when it mattered little whether he scored or not.

The Lions, by comparison, lacked a kicking game, lacked that intensity and lacked ideas in attack when they did get the ball in good field position.

When Sean Long took a lucky intercept from a fumble, he got to within 2m. In the next four plays the Australians pushed them back 20.

The New Zealand Rugby League will do well out of the series financially, not least because they have an agreement for a slightly higher percentage of the profits than the other two partners, who have the benefit of being propped up by the NRL and Super League.

But the Australian clubs, which had already been less than supportive of the series, will now be flat out white-anting any suggestion another be held next year: "No one will come and it will flop financially because the other teams won't be competitive," will be the refrain.

So the Lions did everyone a disservice when they collapsed in the first 40 minutes yesterday, not just the Elland Rd crowd that booed them from the pitch.

Great Britain's worst defeat was the 64-10 whitewash in Sydney in 2002. Yesterday's result was the biggest margin put on them at home since their 50-12 loss to the Kangaroos in 1963. So the argument about closing the gap on the world stage is back to square one.

The NZRL remains committed to at least one North-South game along State of Origin lines next year, with the intention it become a three-game series as the Origin is, played around the same time. NRL boss David Gallop has offered qualified support. It will come down to the clubs, who predictably won't want players released.

The NZRL will push to have the game played during the City-County-Origin representative window of six weeks when multiple teams get the bye. It will propose a Friday night North-South game, with key clubs like the Warriors, Bulldogs and Penrith that field several New Zealanders either given the bye, or scheduled to play on Sunday.

"The NRL would have to support it," concedes NZRL chief executive Peter Cordtz.

He doesn't expect the clubs to stand players down the week before, as they do for Origin, "but if they choose not to play in the North-South game then turn out for their clubs that weekend, we'd have a problem with that".

In April, the Roosters complained that Jason Cayless was just back from knee injury and shouldn't be picked by New Zealand to play the Anzac test. He was and did, then the Roosters played him in the NRL on the Sunday.

So there are two standards, and only if the NRL enforces club amenability will the NZRL find its way through all the smoke and mirrors.

The league will look to have the NRL package the game as part of its deal for representative football broadcasts including Australia's Channel Nine.

Discussion about the Tri-Nations' future will continue, but a meeting of club managements in Sydney early in December is sure to throw up lots of opposition.