With big names dropping like flies, Australian coach Mal Meninga is using these Pacific Championships to blood a long list of international rookies ahead of the 2026 World Cup.
“THESE are the best of the best … selection in this team is the ultimate achievement in our game,” Australian Rugby League Commission Chairman Peter V’landys proclaimed when Mal Meninga revealed the Kangaroos’ 21-man squad for the 2024 Pacific Championships.
It’s bordering on blasphemy to disagree with V’landys, after everything he’s accomplished at the helm of the Australian game.
But looking at the side that beat Tonga 18-0 in Brisbane on Friday, 18th October, it’s difficult to swallow that statement.
Playing their first Test match since a 30-nil humbling at the hands of the Kiwis last post-season, Australia ran out with no Nathan Cleary, no Cameron Munster, no Liam Martin and no Valentine Holmes to name a few.
Besides, Australia no longer holds a monopoly over the game’s brightest stars, with the majority of the 2024 Dally M Team of the Year representing rival nations.
The Kangaroos used to assemble the best of the best, but changing demographics mean many of the NRL’s biggest names come from other backgrounds.
As for the ultimate achievement in our game, that’s clearly now State of Origin. And Origin players deemed good enough to graduate to the international arena don’t automatically represent Australia anymore.
Look at this year’s interstate series.
Both New South Wales and Queensland’s team sheets were loaded with Pasifika players who elect to represent their nations of descent rather than the Kangaroos, including Samoans Brian To’o, Stephen Crichton, Jarome Luai, Spencer Leniu and Jeremiah Nanai plus Tongans Felise Kaufusi, Moeaki Fotuaika and Haumole Olakau’atu.
The Dally M Awards are another great guide to the NRL’s top stars … and the fact they’re not necessarily Australian.
In this year’s count for the main gong, the winner Jahrome Hughes is a Kiwi, and the next two on the podium — James Tedesco and Daly Cherry-Evans — have been overlooked by Meninga for this series.
In the team of the year, there’s only room for six Australians (Tedesco, Zac Lomax, Tom Dearden, Harry Grant, Angus Crichton and Isaah Yeo) thanks to two Samoans (Crichton and To’o), two Tongans (Addin Fonua-Blake and Eliesa Katoa), two Kiwis (Hughes and Joseph Tapine) and an Englishman (Herbie Farnworth).
And then there’s the question of how desperate players are to wear the green and gold, following Newcastle and Queensland star Kalyn Ponga’s decision to declare himself unavailable.
Ponga backflipped, but Meninga snubbed him anyway … and not before the Australian game erupted with debate over the value of an Australian jersey in 2024.
More surprising than Ponga’s original position was that he didn’t hide behind the fig leaf of ‘injury’.
Of course, legitimate injuries are inevitable at the end of such a gruelling club campaign.
This year’s Clive Churchill Medallist Liam Martin ruled himself out with shoulder and rib cartilage issues, replaced in Meninga’s squad by Test debutant Hudson Young.
Panthers team-mate Nathan Cleary is also out, needing shoulder surgery after the Grand Final triumph.
Cameron Munster, Val Holmes and Kotoni Staggs are all casualties, too.
The injury turmoil means Tom Dearden and Mitchell Moses will likely team up in the halves.
While Dearden is the Dally M five-eighth of the year, Moses came in cold, having not played since tearing his biceps in NSW’s win over Queensland in July’s Origin decider.
Meninga’s 21-man squad features nine Test rookies: Young, Dearden, Moses, Warriors prop Mitch Barnett, Knights centre Bradman Best, Storm winger Xavier Coates, Dragons back Zac Lomax, Cowboys hooker Reece Robson and Panthers forward Lindsay Smith.
Smith — a workmanlike forward who’s made 42 of his 54 first-grade appearances for Penrith off the bench — is a particularly surprising selection.
It’s a clear sign that Meninga is using the Pacific Championships as a fact-finding mission ahead of the 2026 World Cup on home soil.
His squad looks vastly different to the one that claimed the silverware at Old Trafford two years ago.
Starters Ben Hunt, Angus Crichton and Isaah Yeo plus subs Harry Grant, Patrick Carrigan and Cameron Murray are the only survivors. No member of the World Cup-winning back line will appear in this post-season series.
Huge names like Tedesco, Holmes, Munster, Cleary, Martin, Cherry-Evans, Jack Wighton, Latrell Mitchell, Josh Addo-Carr, Jake Trbojevic, Reagan Campbell-Gillard and Tino Fa’asuamaleaui have fallen out of form, favour or fitness.
Meninga has named a new team for a new era, snubbing the incumbent Kangaroos skipper and the two Origin captains in a major statement.
World Cup winners Tedesco (2022), Cherry-Evans (2022 and 2013) and Jake Trbojevic (2022 and 2017) all seem to have played their last game in green and gold, as Meninga’s draws up his plans for 2026.
If V’landys genuinely expects Test matches to feature the ‘best of the best’, he should reflect on the timing of the series.
While it’s hard to find anywhere else other than October and November to squish internationals into the calendar, it does place a huge ask on players — many of whom carry injury niggles to the finish line of the NRL season, desperate for surgery and a rest before resuming pre-season.
Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow (above) lined up for the Indigenous All Stars in Townsville way back on 16th February. If the Kangaroos make the Pacific Championships final in Parramatta on Sunday, 10th November, that would stretch his season to a whopping 38 weeks.
Maori All Star and New Zealand prop Joseph Tapine has run the same marathon.
Ponga’s snub — as controversial as it was — underscores the demands on players. His Newcastle team-mates will be back training for 2025 before Australia’s 2024 rep commitments are even done.
The Kiwis have even worse personnel issues.
Of the 17 that flogged the Kangaroos in last year’s Pacific Championships decider in Hamilton, Hughes, Brandon Smith, Dylan Brown, Ronaldo Mulitalo, Moses Leota, Briton Nikora and Kieran Foran are all injured, Nelson Asofa-Solomona is suspended and Joey Manu is off to rugby union.
Their injury crisis has even lured Shaun Johnson out of retirement. The 34-year-old will make his first Test outing since the Lions Tour of 2019.
Tonga are also without David Fifita, Fotuaika and Siosifa Talakai as they participate in the Pacific Championships for the first time, following their fruitless tour of the UK last post-season.
First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 502 (November 2024)
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