By STEVE MASCORD
WORLD Cup winners just two tournaments ago, New Zealand have made the sort of sweeping changes over the past fortnight to indicate they fear missing the final this year.
Since losing the 2013 World Cup final 34-2 to Australia, the Kiwis clung to the top rung of the international rankings until last year – despite a 2-1 series defeat in England at the end of 2015.
Their victory in the 2014 Four Nations certainly helped but now the NZRL have called in some big guns.
South Sydney’s premiership-winning CEO Shane Richardson with be chief d’mission at the World Cup, former England coach Steve McNamara – who masterminded the 2015 series win – is an assistant to David Kidwell.
And now the Kiwis are trying to get North Queensland’s Paul Green on board too.
“That will be a call for Kiddy to make between the May Test against Australia and the World Cup,” Richardson tells RLW. “Nothing is finalised there.”
Even during a period of immense success, there have been problems for the Kiwis. A review of the 2013 World Cup campaign reportedly identified misuse of prescription medicine and as recently as last year, several players were precluded from selection over similar allegations.
Benji Marshall losing the captaincy and the exclusion of certain players provided Kidwell’s predecessor, Stephen Kearney, with other unwanted distractions.
“You’ve got make sure the players buy into the culture and to do that you need to have discipline on and off the field,” says Richardson, who got the blessing of Souths owner Russell Crowe to take the newly created role.
“Australia have created a high performance unit that is at the top of sport, not just rugby league. The Kiwis realised they need to step up too.
“I just make sure we cross every T and dot every I and take the pressure off Kiddy and make sure he focuses on coaching rather than some of the peripheral things that might have happened on the tour of England last year.”
McNamara’s appointment adds a third dimension to the Mal Meninga-Wayne Bennett rivalry. Having missed out on Meninga’s job, Bennett took McNamara’s.
“I’m not sure he’d be thinking that way – I think he’d be thinking he loves international football and it’s an opportunity to get back involved in it,” Richardson said.
Big League will publish scouting reports on all World Cup teams in the run through to the tournament kick-off in October.
Filed for BIG LEAGUE MAGAZINE
