League: It's all in the family when the coach is talking turkey

Kiwis coach Brian McClennan has clearly galvanised the New Zealand league team and engendered a family spirit that the players have bought right in to.

He has introduced a corporate, goal-setting approach while encouraging the players to use their individual skills and to go hard in playing for one another and for their pride.

He has instilled the goal of playing to win rather than playing to compete well.

It's an approach the team clearly like.

"Bluey stresses that a lot, playing for everyone and playing hard," said half Thomas Leuluai.

McClennan said he wanted his players to be comfortable in their roles. And despite the presence of big-name players including 50-test veteran Ruben Wiki and the young Benji Marshall and Sonny Bill Williams, he says: "There are no superstars in our camp, everyone is looked at the same."

There is plenty of desire to show that the Tri-Nations win last year was not a one-off. McClennan and technical adviser Graeme Norton have worked since the win that day to keep the plan and the players fresh.

His father Mike, former Kiwis fullback and St Helens coach and Warriors assistant, has been a sounding board.

"Brian is pretty composed and the players take confidence from his confidence," Mike McClennan said. "He's not excitable."

Discussions on test selection, the game plan and the threats posed by the Kangaroos are regular, what Mike McClennan calls "two-hour coffees".

"If he has something really vital and he wants to run it past me he will. I've put some scenarios to him."

He has one big worry about the game - the Australians' superior kicking firepower. So that's something the pair are sure to have worked long and hard on. If the Kiwis can stifle the kicking of Andrew Johns and Darren Lockyer and if they hold possession of the ball and gift few turnovers they can win, he said.

Mike McClennan has been at every test where his son has been head coach: "It's been great support," Brian McClennan said.