Kangaroos coach Mal Meninga has backed hooker Harry Grant to play big minutes throughout the Pacific Championships campaign and scoffed when asked about needing to change his dummy half rotation following Australia’s win over Tonga.
"Why?” Meninga had said with a laugh at the post-match press conference when asked if he would look at bringing in a new hooker for the revenge mission against New Zealand.
In naming an unchanged side to face the Kiwis, including Ben Hunt as 18th player, Meninga was more reflective and said he wanted “to build our combinations and keep improving our cohesion”.
“It's a new side, a lot of debutants particularly in the spine, I feel that it was the right thing to do moving forward," Meninga told media in Christchurch ahead of Sunday's match.
"I just felt that because of the newbies and because of the cohesive nature of our game, in the spine in particular, I just felt that it's really important that we just keep that going for the time being.
"Fingers crossed, we get through Sunday really well, everyone's fit and healthy and we go into battle again for the Pacific Championship."
Kangaroos: Week 1
That suits Grant just fine, despite coming off a long season that included 23 games for the Storm and three State of Origin matches for the Maroons.
The Storm skipper - who announced on Wednesday he had taken up his player option to stay in Melbourne until the end of the 2026 season - was relishing the opportunity to play as much as possible in the green and gold jersey.
“Body is holding up good,” Grant said. “You want to be playing footy during the finals, the grand final, that's when you want to be playing footy.
“I'm feeling good. I think probably 80 minutes is what I've been used to this year at clubland, so going off that, that's what I'm used to, but rep footy in the past, have played off the bench and played a bit of that tandem role with Dozer (Ben Hunt).
“Every time you put on the green and gold it is a challenge and you know who you are playing for and the opposition know too.
“So, we'll just see how things go over the next couple of weeks.”
The Kangaroos travelled to New Zealand on Tuesday and received an official welcome - pōwhiri - after settling into their new base yesterday, but Grant was also looking forward to reigniting hostilities come Sunday at a sold-out Apollo Projects Stadium.
“We knew we had a shorter turnaround last week, the group was coming together, we only had six days to prepare, so it was really maximising every training session, every day together,” Grant said.
“The performance, we probably would have liked our execution to be a lot better.
“But we defended well, we scrambled well and we just need to grow. We just need to build on that performance last week.
“That was the game we needed together to get things rolling and then make sure we take that up a level this week.
Unfinished business for Kangaroos: Murray
“It is going to be a challenge. It is a big game.
“It was obviously disappointing (what happened) last year, but we can’t change that. We can’t dwell on that.
“It is a new team and we can just learn from it.
“I think we are putting things in place to learn from that and go again this week. I am really excited for the challenge.”
Match: Kiwis v Kangaroos
Week 2 -
home Team
Kiwis
2nd Position
away Team
Kangaroos
1st Position
Venue: Apollo Projects Stadium, Christchurch
