Australia fullback Greg Inglis has admitted he knows very little about Friday night’s opponents Scotland as the Kangaroos and the Bravehearts open the Four Nations this evening.
Inglis has been left out of Mal Meninga’s 19-man squad for the game as the Kangaroos coach rotates his pack ahead of games against New Zealand and England in the remainder of the group stage.
And, speaking to TotalRL, Inglis concedes that aside from their NRL stars, the Bravehearts are somewhat of an unknown quantity to him at least.
“I don’t know much about Scotland,” he said.
“I know Lachlan Coote has been in great form for the Cowboys for the last three years, and Euan Aitken is someone else I know well too, and I think it’s great they’re playing. In terms of knowing what they’re going to produce though, I just couldn’t tell you unfortunately!”
However, one team Inglis does know quite well is England – and he believes that with Wayne Bennett in charge this year, they will be a tough nut to crack over the next month or so.
“I think they’ll be very strong a very tough side to beat, especially with Wayne taking over,” he said.
“I’m not too sure what it is that he does on a day-to-day basis because I’ve not worked with him but he gets that extra one per cent out of his teams, and I’m sure he’ll bring that to England.”
Although Inglis will not feature in Hull on Friday, he did play in the Kangaroos’ warm-up win against New Zealand – and he insisted that it was a game the new-look Australians needed to battle-harden themselves for the Four Nations.
“I think that was a great preparation for us coming into this tournament, the Test in Perth. The team played fantastic; there was a few new faces and they handled themselves really well.
“We haven’t played much football, especially with the new guys, so that game was huge for us. That was a great week in Perth, we topped it off with a good performance and it was ideal for us.
Guys like Valentine Holmes are part of this new-look group and we knew these lads would get their shot at some point. Josh Mansour is in this weekend and there’s some real battles for the 17 jerseys that are on offer. It’s great to see so many spots up for grabs; I know that when it’s time to hang up the rep jersey the state of the national team is in real good hands.”