BY JOHN DAVIDSON
Mal Meninga says the Kangaroos “fully expected” to face England in the World Cup final and admitted “no one” predicted Samoa were going to win their semi-final.
Samoa upset the hosts in the Emirates and went on to play Australia in the final at Old Trafford.
Speaking at an MJK Sports event last night in Bradford, the Kangaroos head coach admitted he was “disappointed” England didn’t reach the final.
“We were a little disappointed that England didn’t make the final,” Meninga said.
“We fully expected England to get to the final…. No one predicted Samoa winning.”
Meninga said his team embraced the pressure of being expected to win the tournament, and of having little support in front of hostile crowds.
“We don’t consider it pressure. We consider it normality. It’s who we are. We have to accept it. We’re expected to win, and if we didn’t win it’s an upset or we’ve fallen off the mantlepiece.
“We accept it, acknowledge it and live with it.
“I was expecting boos. We knew we’d get that right from day one. We were under no illusion that the crowds were going to support us. We just had to face that.
“Everyone expects an Australian side to win tournaments. That’s our expectation and that’s what we worked towards. We knew if we didn’t play to our potential [we wouldn’t win].
“That semi-final against NZ was a tough, physical game. The quality was equal or better than Origin. We were lucky we had an eight-day turnaround to the final.
“It took it out of us. We knew everyone was going to be against us.”
The Kangaroos beat Samoa 30-10 at Old Trafford to retain the World Cup.
Meninga believes the tournament has revitalised the international game but a global calendar is needed.
“It has rebooted the international game but it’s up to our organisers to push it on,” he said.
“We’ve got an opportunity. It’s up to our decision-makers, what do they want to do with it? We need to set a schedule. I can’t see the reason why we can’t have four-year cycles.
“We can play against Yorkshire, Lancashire and rep sides. We can have five or six-week mini [Kangaroo] tours. There’s plenty of opportunity for us to do that. But there has to be parity [in payments].
“How can we get parity in payments to all teams. It starts in an equal fashion. If it’s all equal, then players will choose with their heart, not their pocket. We need to get rid of the tiers.Â
“Everyone has got to play games, we’ve got to play more Test matches.”
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