Australia coach Mal Meninga has admitted he is yet to make a decision on his one and only selection dilemma for this weekend’s Four Nations final: and Kiwis counterpart David Kidwell has revealed he is in the same boat.
The Kangaroos will make only one change to the 17 who beat England on the weekend, after forward Sam Thaiday was forced to undergo surgery having suffered an injury during the victory against England.
Meninga has publicly revealed the two players in contention to replace Thaiday, but he kept his decision-making process close to his chest at Tuesday’s press conference at Anfield.
He said: “I’ve not decided yet. We’ll make a decision over the next couple of days.
“Shannon Boyd and Jake Trbojevic are the two options we’ve got – they’re our forward options.”
Meanwhile, the Kiwis are hunting a replacement at stand-off after half-back Thomas Leuluai suffered a serious jaw injury during last weekend’s draw against Scotland in Workington.
Like Meninga, Kidwell has a couple of options to replace the Wigan-bound half-back, but said nothing has been decided yet.
When asked if he knew who would replace Leuluai, he said: “No is the short answer. We’ve got a couple of options and we’ve got a couple of training sessions coming up so we’ll figure it out. Whoever comes in we’ll have full confidence in them to do the job.”
Meninga added: “I don’t know who’ll play five-eighth for them – they’re fairly settled. We haven’t put any thought into the Kiwis yet, we’re just making sure our preparation is good.”
