Rugby rivals going head to head at Anfield

But rugby league isn’t played on paper.

After a decidedly one-sided Four Nations, can anyone realistically stop Meninga’s team?

Josh Dugan scored two tries and Johnathan Thurston kicked three conversions and two penalties as Australia claimed their fourth victory over New Zealand in 2016.

“We need to turn up ready to play our best game of the tournament”.

Meninga added: “They are fantastic”.

“The 10 metres is pretty crucial to how you referee the game”.

“I haven’t seen too many better spines in our game or in worldwide rugby league”.

“In rugby league and rugby union, we’re obsessed with producing athletes”.

New Zealand beat England by one point, lost against the Kangaroos and then stumbled to a draw with debutants Scotland in their last outing.

“We just needed to get back to a decent completion rate to be honest with you…”

What hope is there for England?

Australia’s dominance across the first 50 minutes appeared to have allowed some complacency to creep into their game, and the Kiwis made the most of their opponents’ sloppiness as they dominated much of the closing stages.

New Zealand’s Jesse Bromwich is surrounded by Australia’s Aaron Woods, Trent Merrin and Cameron Smith during the final of the Four Nations.

He has gone to coach numerous same players in their club colours with the New Zealand Warriors in the NRL.

Best spine in history: Mal Meninga has labelled the current spine of the Kangaroos as the greatest ever in worldwide league.

“I couldn’t be happier as a coach”.

Meninga was able to hand every one of his players an Australian jumper throughout the tournament and was pleased with all of their efforts over the past six weeks.

“People come along and want to watch them”.

“We gave a good team an inch, and you can’t do that against Australia“.

“This conversation has been going on for 15 years”.

And what about New Zealand?

The Kangaroos were at their awesome best in a performance reminiscent of their 34-2 destruction of their trans-Tasman rivals in the 2013 World Cup.

Kidwell replaced Steve Kearney in September and has only won one of his first five matches in charge. “We wanted to impose ourselves on the opposition right from the start”.

Meninga said the smaller surface wouldn’t be too much of a factor on Sunday (Monday NZ Time), as long as the sides were only kept back the required distance at the ruck. “New Zealand are in the process of building again”.

Meanwhile, both coaches were keeping their final team selection under wraps at the press conference. “It is a development phase”.

“We know they’ll be fired up so we’ll have to match their commitment”. “It’s my first tour and I’ve definitely learned a lot”.

“Yeah we do (have faith in him)”, Johnson said. “That starts with hard work and doing the little things in games that really count”.

He said: “They’ve had a disappointing tournament, that’s all. I just wish they could get a break down there”. “We brought our A game which is a coach’s dream”.