Rugby Leauge: Smashing moment for Kiwis

By PETER JESSUP

The Kiwis went into the centenary of tests between New Zealand and Australia with little on their side except pride, passion and payback, as the pre-match advertising declared, but turned the three Ps on with an enthusiasm that killed the Kangaroos.

They built the win on smashing tackling.

The Kangaroos couldn't take it. They wilted in the face of the body-crunchers from Penrith's Hair Bears (Tony Puletua and Joe Galuvao), Awen Guttenbeil and Monty Betham and captain Ruben Wiki. Nathan Cayless played a smart role, making telling tackles at telling times but they were no less hurting.

Galuvao, Jason Cayless, Puletua, Guttenbeil and Wiki smashed great yardage, always attracting multiple tacklers and the elder Cayless again timed his runs for the big moment, when the team were flagging.

Experience in big games clearly showed. Nigel Vagana hung off a tackle to wait for the in-pass when the Kangaroos looked likely to score and when the pass came he smashed Matt Sing. Vinnie Anderson joked with his coach, Daniel, that "I hung onto it this time boss," talking about getting over the line with the ball instead of having it knocked out as he dived, as happened against Penrith in the finals eliminator.

There were heroes all over the park for the Kiwis. No one turned in a poor game. Coach Anderson said everyone had played up to their best performance of the season.

"We had to guts it out, the game was in the balance a couple of times. At times you have to counter-punch when you're on your knees and I thought that's what got us home.

"It was pretty aggressive out there. They carried the football hard but we carried it harder."

They started by conceding two penalties and then a try, when Sing beat Francis Meli for pace then turned the ball inside to Brett Kimmorley. It was the Australian halfback's only good moment - his kicking game was poor, his error rate high and his selection ahead of grandfinal winner Craig Gower is now sure to haunt Kangaroos coach Chris Anderson.



Another penalty from referee Sean Hampstead set up Lockyer to turn a clever ball inside for second-rower Steve Simpson. The Kiwis fell off tackles and the crowd went quiet.

But momentum swings with possession in league. When Craig Fitzgibbon slid over as he lifted his foot for the conversion, knocking the ball wide and low, it was the signal for a swing.

Motu Tony sparked the Kiwis, darting 40m from a quick penalty tap, despite having already been limping with a calf tear. From the quick play-the-ball Kimmorley went high on Thomas Leuluai and from the penalty tap, Betham spread the ball right then left to find Anderson. Sione Faumuina lined up for his first kick in a test - having made one conversion from one attempt in the NRL season, against the Bulldogs in the big playoff win - and from 30m out and 10m in he sliced it just wide.

Ali Lauiti'iti and Jerry Seuseu were injected into the game, meaning more power for the Kangaroos to cope with. The pressure told when "Little Joe" Galuvao threw a wide and high pass that looked way too clever for a forward, and wing Henry Fa'afili snapped it up to score.

That was another of their secrets - second-rowers who played like centres.

Meli redeemed himself with an intercept off a Lockyer pass, that rare event suggesting the rustiness of not having played for five weeks was telling for some of the Kangaroos. Meli pushed Sing off, ran another 20m and found Toopi in back-up. He sprinted the last 20m, outpacing Anthony Minichiello, who played a tired game, making some crucial errors.

The half ended with the Kiwis 14-10 up and pressing, the forwards making a 50m gain out of their own half and Leuluai hoofing a confident kick well downfield. The crowd of 21,296 stood to clap off their courage in not folding.

Just after the kick-off, big Kangaroo interchange forward Willie Mason broke some lacklustre tackles and charged 40m towards the goal line. Between him and it was the injured Motu Tony, who stared him down and threw his 88kg at Mason's pumping legs, only slowing the 115kg monster. But that was enough. Toopi caught up in cover and slammed Mason down from behind, punching the ball out to save a certain try - had Mason held possession the Kangaroos would have taken advantage of the ragged and rushed defence.

From there the Kiwis looked the more enthusiastic side. They threw themselves into the tackling with vengeance. The Kangaroos were so stunned by it they took until the second or third run of their possession sets before they spread and started threatening.

Momentum swung their way mid-second half when Shane Webcke scored after a grubber from Lockyer bounced off Minichiello's legs and the prop pounced.

Vagana, at fullback to cover for Tony who went off after five minutes of the second 40, let a Lockyer bomb bounce and the result was a goal-line drop-out. Danny Buderus knocked on, Craig Wing lost the ball forward and their chance was gone.

Wiki cleverly forced a penalty by taking the ball from dummy-half and running at off-side tacklers still retreating for the play-the-ball.

Then Galuvao made a huge bust when allowed to run again after being flipped to the ground. "I looked at him [ref Hampstead] all the time and he wasn't saying anything so I took that to


be saying 'go hard'," Galuvao reflected afterwards.

The ground gained let Vagana slip a clever ball high to Toopi, who ran in for try two. Three minutes later, Faumuina spun from a tackle and delivered a nice inside ball to Leuluai, who went wide for Toopi who ran in No 3 after busting Lockyer and beating Luke Ricketson in cover.

The Kiwis bombed more chances. Toopi dropped the ball on the line. Twice it was thrown over the sideline when the Kangaroos' line was open. Faumuina tried a clever chip-chase over the top but the ball fell one metre too soon, to Lockyer.

The Australians were forced to play catch-up, and couldn't.

They didn't have the combinations the Kiwis did - the Cayless brothers, the Penrith boys, a back-five of Warriors and four more Warriors up front.

With three minutes to go, Lockyer was laid out on the field, knocked unconscious when he hit a knee or hip in a tackle, walked to the sideline in a daze. The other Kangaroos were almost as stunned. They had hands on hips when Anderson's eyes lit up at the sight of the chalk and he sprinted 20m to end the scoring in a weird coincidence. In 1998 the Kiwis lost 16-30 to the Kangaroos on the same ground.

No one went home early on Saturday night.

The crowd went into raptures when captain Wiki held the transtasman trophy aloft. Warriors prop and former Junior Kiwi Richard Villasanti, who was roundly booed as he ran the sideline in warm-up before making his debut for the Kangaroos, had no regrets about his choice and graciously conceded defeat.

"Good luck to the boys," he said, "they were the better team."

"And yeah, it feels pretty strange," he agreed, walking off in front of a wildly cheering Kiwi crowd that wasn't cheering for him.



"This is what rugby league is all about," said a grinning NZRL chairman Selwyn Pearson, left alone mid-pitch as the team went into a huddle for photographs. "this is what makes the game special."