League: McClennan offers no excuses

Brian McClennan

BRISBANE - Kiwi coach Brian McClennan offered no excuses but said his team had simply been outplayed, after Australia ran away with the Anzac rugby league test in Brisbane last night.

One of the most anticipated transtasman clashes in years turned into a sweeping Kangaroo victory as the home side piled on second-half points to blow a 14-6 half-time lead out to a 50-12 result at Suncorp Stadium.

With champion halfback Andrew Johns showing glimpses of his brilliance and also landing eight goals from nine attempts in his farewell international, Australia gained revenge for their 24-0 defeat in the Tri-Nations final six months ago.

In all, they scored eight tries to two, skipper Darren Lockyer and winger Timana Tahu each getting a double.

McClennan said the game got away from the Kiwis in the third quarter, as the Australian raids out wide began paying dividends.

"It just broke away from us," he said.

"The Aussies were very, very good. All we can do is take our hats off to them."

While the Kiwis were down by just eight points at the break, McClennan felt they hadn't really got going in the first half.

They had failed to string enough passes together or create enough opportunities.

"Having said that, I was pretty proud of the boys," he said.

"We held the middle pretty well. But we always knew that if it broke out, we were going to be doing it tough because the Aussies are a better passing team than us. They have more points of attack. We needed to keep the game tight."

The Kiwis suffered a late setback with inspirational skipper Ruben Wiki failing a fitness test on his strained hamstring.

McClennan said Wiki, who had been in line for his 51st cap, was close to playing, but not close enough.

"Having said that, we make no excuses," he said.

"We put our best team out on the field and we just got outplayed."

In another change to his starting 13, McClennan decided to leave mercurial playmaker Benji Marshall on the bench.

The move was aimed at shielding Marshall, who had been in action since dislocating his shoulder four weeks ago, from the expected fierce early exchanges.

Marshall came on around the half-hour, firstly in his usual role of five-eighth before moving to halfback early in the second spell when Thomas Leuluai suffered a hamstring problem.

He tried hard to spark the New Zealand attack, but couldn't quite produce the magic touches to turn the tide.

"It was a good experience for Benji," McClennan said.

"He had to run the show at halfback and I'm sure he'll take something out of the game."

The match was watched by 44,191 spectators, a record for a transtasman test in Queensland.

The verbal jousting in the build-up was matched by the uncompromising defence of both sides, with the Kiwis muscling up in particular over the early stages.

But the contest never degenerated and the only incident was when Kiwi forward Frank Pritchard hit Kangaroo debutant Karmichael Hunt high early in the second half.

Hunt was knocked out and took no further part in the match, while Pritchard was charged with a careless high tackle, but avoided suspension with an early guilty plea.

Kangaroo coach Ricky Stuart believed the margin of victory wasn't a true reflection of a rugged encounter.

"From where I was sitting, it was a very, very tough game," he said.

"The first 30 minutes, I witnessed a lot of collision and a lot of physicality. It was a fairly brutal game and I don't think the scoreline shows that."

Stuart paid tribute to Johns, 31, who had wanted to have one last shot at the Kiwis after having been part of the Kangaroos' unsuccessful Tri-Nations campaign last year.

He described the Newcastle Knight, who ends a 11-year test career with 21 caps, as the greatest player he had seen.

"You can't replace him," Stuart said.

"We now have a hole at halfback and the hole needs to be filled."

Also leaving the test arena was veteran forward Ben Kennedy, whose decision to come out of a brief international retirement was also the result of Tri-Nations disappointment.

Kennedy signed off with the bonus of some test points, being given the chance to land an easy conversion late on when the result had already been decided.

Australian hooker Danny Buderus, whose snipes from dummy half caused problems for the Kiwis, was named man of the match.

- NZPA