KEY POINTS:
All the action in the build-up to the test marking 100 years of rugby league in Sydney this Friday was off the field yesterday.
Kangaroos skipper Darren Lockyer ruled himself out after suffering recurrent soreness in the right knee which was reconstructed last June and will undergo an arthroscopic scrape which will rule him out until after State of Origin One on May 21.
Kangaroos coach Ricky Stuart was not ruling Lockyer out of the World Cup in October/November but the captain's position looks shaky. "The hardest part about a knee reconstruction is the six months [recovery] after surgery," Stuart said. "We've always said that it's an 18-month injury. "I feel although next year will be a better year for Darren Lockyer in regards to [overcoming] his knee operation."
Greg Bird moves from lock to replace him, as he did when Australia thrashed the Kiwis 58-0 in Wellington last October. He offers tough defence and few mistakes, but is far short of the flair of Lockyer.
Melbourne's Michael Crocker was brought into the 17 - an affront to 18th man Anthony Laffranchi - Stuart waiting to announce who will start in the back row but saying Crocker's test experience told in that selection.
The focus in Aussie is on their coach versus Phil Gould, the pair slagging each other in newspaper columns owned by opposing media outlets who also enjoy slagging each other. Gould said Stuart doesn't like halfback Johnathan Thurston and doesn't know how to coach halves; Stuart replied that Gould slags every coach more successful than him.
"I didn't feel as though I needed to answer a person who [I feel] is trying to destabilise the Australian squad," Stuart said in his column in yesterday's News Ltd Daily Telegraph, in response to Gould's in the Fairfax-owned Sunday Herald. "I believe he has also tried to destabilise my team at the Sharks with his constant agendas, but they won't - and nor will the Australian team - be destabilised by a weak individual," Stuart wrote.
Good stuff for the Kiwis, distraction galore.
They started assembling on Sunday and more came into camp yesterday, all the NRL players passing fitness tests. For a change, there were no citings of Kiwis. In previous years key players including Quentin Pongia, Ali Lauitiiti, John Lomax, Jarrod McCracken have been ruled out the week prior.
Brent Webb arrives from England today. Thomas Leuluai has no problem with the elbow that was taped during Wigan's embarrassing 57-16 hiding by St Helens yesterday and is on the plane, due to arrive tomorrow.
