When Kangaroos coach Mal Meninga takes his seat at Old Trafford in Manchester for the Rugby League World Cup final against Samoa, he’ll be returning to the scene of the most iconic moment of his international career as a player.
Where were you in 1990 when Meninga finished off a length-of-the field try to snatch the second Test against Great Britain in injury time?
I was on my feet in my parents’ loungeroom, punching the air in silent celebration trying not to wake up the rest of the house.
History records Meninga as the try scorer, but it belonged, of course, to halfback Ricky Stuart.
With the scores locked at 10-all, Australia were pinned on their own try line, sending the ball from one side of the field to the other, looking for a crack in the defensive line.
Stuart – the ultimate “game manager” who played “eyes-up footy” – found a sliver, sold Lee Jackson a dummy and slipped through.
Kangaroos coach Mal Meninga.Credit:Getty
As he charged into the backfield, with the oversized Puma football used in that series in one hand, Stuart looked left and right, trying to connect with winger Andrew Ettingshausen for the match-winner.
What he didn’t see until the last second was Meninga behind him shunting defenders out of the way like a runaway Mack truck in peak-hour traffic, ready to gobble up Stuart’s inside pass for the try that kept the series alive.
It’s worth watching a replay on YouTube just for commentator David Morrow’s batshit crazy – and entirely appropriate – description.
What Meninga would give for a crafty half like Stuart – or Allan Langer, or Andrew Johns, or Johnathan Thurston – for the final against Samoa on Sunday morning AEDT.
The criticism of Nathan Cleary following Australia’s narrow semi-final victory over New Zealand has been unfairly brutal and typically overblown, but it’s not entirely without merit.
Cleary’s strength is his kicking, and in this tournament it has lacked the precision to which we’ve become accustomed. His botched kick with two minutes on the clock against the Kiwis could have cost his side a place in the final.
They are the kicks the halfback must nail, and Cleary usually does. Mostly, the Penrith halfback has been satisfactory during this World Cup – but not brilliant. He’s been an important cog in the wheel, but he hasn’t blown matches apart.
This is the halfback Cleary was born to be, particularly at rep level. When will people understand he’s a technician, not a magician?
Cleary is a manufactured playmaker who has won premierships for Penrith and State of Origins for NSW through hard work and obsession, poring over video and scribbling in a journal like a madman and staying so long after training he turns out the lights at Penrith Stadium.
Johns and Langer and even Stuart were artists. Cleary, much like Cooper Cronk, is a rugby league nerd working on the algorithm for rugby league perfection.
Both styles can work. They can win premierships, Origins and even World Cups.
But when the game is on the line, like it was against the Kiwis, Australia can’t look to Cleary for the stroke of genius. They need to look to Cameron Munster, Latrell Mitchell or James Tedesco.
It seems silly being critical of a team that’s reached the final, but the heat is on Meninga as much as his halfback heading into the decider against an emotionally charged Samoa side who have nothing to lose.
Internally, the Kangaroos have been concerned about their soft run into the pointy end of the tournament. The pool matches against Fiji, Scotland and Italy, then the quarter-final against Lebanon, were glorified training runs that allowed Meninga to tinker with his line-up.
It also gave him too much time to make the toughest call: Cleary or Daly Cherry-Evans at halfback? In the absence of a clear favourite, Meninga dithered. The soft draw allowed him to do so.
Against New Zealand, it almost cost Australia as much as Cleary’s last kick.
Some people are raving about the semi-final being one of the greatest played in the history of international football (see above for perspective), but Australia looked, at times, like a team that barely knew each other.
Their combinations were clunky, but what else could we expect when Meninga had been taking an each-way bet on his starting halfback since the start of the tournament?
Australia’s bizarro numbering system, with players’ numbers determined by how many internationals they had played, was mostly about dodging the halfback conundrum. Meninga didn’t want to hand the No.7 jersey to either Cleary or Cherry-Evans because it would’ve suggested he favoured one over the other.
In Cherry-Evans’ favour was his Origin-winning form for Queensland and his combinations with Munster, Ben Hunt and Harry Grant.
But Cleary has steered Penrith to consecutive premierships and enjoys a near-telepathic relationship with lock Isaah Yeo and Liam Martin.
He’s also the likely NSW and Australian half for the next five to 10 years if he stays on his current trajectory.
The fear was that he was out of this comfort zone, having played most of his football as a junior, at Penrith and NSW with the same people, in the same sort of system.
A World Cup of Two Halves … Nathan Cleary and Daly Cherry-Evans.
Building relationships and combinations within the national side was going to take time, especially for an unassuming character like Cleary. We easily forget he’s only 24.
With this in mind, Meninga should have made a definitive call at the start of the World Cup, not the end.
He waited until the quarter-final against Lebanon to settle on Cleary but for the second half of that match the coach had to play Cherry-Evans at five-eighth after James Tedesco was injured and Munster covered for him at fullback.
The result is tht Cleary comes into this match, on the grandest of stages, under intense pressure while still finding his feet.
He’s been here before, of course, often silencing his critics with stunning victories and man-of-the-match performances.
How appropriate that Cleary is a Manchester United supporter and gets his chance at their home ground, the Theatre of Dreams. If he can steer Australia to victory, it will be the greatest achievement of his young career.
For Meninga, it will bring sheer relief – much like that victory on the same patch of grass 32 years ago.
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