Almanac Rugby League – The Ashes and The Pacific Championships: The season finally comes to an end

 

 

The Ashes – Third Test

The more things change, the more they stay the same. The Kangaroos completed a clean sweep of the series with a 30-8 win in the Third Test at Leeds, a victory built on their rock solid defence which has been the outstanding feature of their campaign. England challenged with an energetic, positive approach, egged on by a capacity crowd of 20,000 that made more noise and revved the locals up more than three times that number at Wembley a fortnight ago. But it’s an 80-minute game where a 65-minute challenge will never be enough; it’s a game where, at this level, you have to take what chances come your way and only one team managed that – it wasn’t England (eg Watkins in the first half); elite sport requires that you keep the opposition superstars under control throughout – just two flashes of Walsh in the latter stages blew the scoreline apart.

 

The match was, in some ways, a microcosm of the whole series. Only one team showed the capacity to score tries in sufficient numbers to always be on the winning side. Eleven tries to two for the series is pretty telling – even then, one of England’s tries was in junk time at the end of the First Test. Two tries in 240 minutes of footy! That’s not enough to win a single game, let alone a three-match series. England had no problem getting into good field position throughout the series but just could not execute scoring plays. The excellent Kangaroos defence simply snuffed them out. By contrast, the Australians scored through a mixture of well constructed plays, flashes of individual brilliance and by taking opportunities when an ounce of luck came their way. Maintaining a high level of intensity for the full 80 minutes, both in attack and defence, was the key difference.

 

Grant had his best game of the series and deserved his ‘man of the match’ honours, Munster called the shots and executed the plays that led to tries, Crichton was strong yet again, and Walsh provided the flash and dash. Everyone else did their bit – again! For England, Farnworth was best yet again (if only they had a few more like him), and Litten showed that he wouldn’t be out of place in the NRL. The mercurial Munster was ‘player of the series’ but the consistent Crichton must have been in the running too. Referee Atkins had another good game; I expect he was happy to have full field markings!

 

Looking at the series as a whole, the Australians were a class above their opponents in every aspect of the game even though all three performances were clunky and error riddled. Imagine what they might do if they had a longer preparation to hone their combinations, halved their error rate and had all players fit and available (think Murray, Coates, Trbjovic and Mitchell just for starters).

 

The Pacific Championships

Women’s division: The Jillaroos asserted their power, skills and ruthlessness to swamp the Ferns 40-8 in the women’s final. The Australians were ‘on’, with turbo chargers, from the get go and smashed their way to a winning 24-0 half-time scoreline, then held off a moderate Kiwi resurgence to outscore their opponents 16-8 in the second half. It seems that the Ferns used up a lot of petrol last week in their narrow loss and just couldn’t go with the Jillaroos this time around. I said last week that the Jillaroos would study the tape of that game well and devise a way to counter the Kiwi game plan. And, my oh my, they did it very effectively, snuffing out the Ferns’ forwards and suffocating their backs.

 

While the Australians dominated, what impressed me most about this game was the speed, attack-at-all-costs approach by both teams (regardless of field position), and the excellent spirit in which it was played. No niggle, just great footy. Full praise to both teams! On the day, the Jillaroos were a class ahead in all aspects and deserved their win.

 

I won’t nominate any best players from either side because to do so would be a disservice to the rest of their respective squads. Let’s just say that I had no beef with the choice of the outstanding Robinson as player of the match. I’ll limit myself to a couple of observations: Georgia Hale is a real goer who plays well above her weight! Isabelle Kelly is the competitor’s competitor. Ellie Johnston is one of the most improved players of 2025. Tiana Davison is a front rower of the modern ilk. Tamika Upton is simply breathtaking. She may not be the most stylish runner but she has the skills, game awareness and speed to unravel and destroy defences, seemingly effortlessly. Referee Belinda Sharpe had a very good game and seems to enjoy the respect of the players.

 

With an eye on the NRLW 2026 season, Jesse Southwell’s arrival at the Broncos has already made them favourites for back-to-back flags. But I saw something today that was mouthwatering at the prospect and would have sent a ‘shiver up the spine’ warning for the rest of the competition. Late in the first half, coming out of their own end, a quick play the ball had the Jillaroos on the front foot. Southwell, who reads the play beautifully, jinked into first receiver, played a step to her left and seemingly sensed that Upton was hovering. An almost no-look pass and Upton was away, stopped only by some very desperate defence. Watch these two carve them up next year!

 

The Jillaroos will enter next year’s World Cup as the hottest of hot favourites!

 

Men’s division:

What was said in the Kiwis’ changerooms at half-time? Or what was in the cool-aid? Whatever, it worked a treat and after a pretty mediocre effort in the first half which left them with a 6-14 deficit, the Kiwis came out and put on 30 unanswered points to claim the Pacific Championships by a margin of 36-14 over Toa Samoa. As the cliché says, it was a game of two halves.

 

Samoa looked very bright and energetic early on and a try to To’o came as no surprise. An intercept by Sasagi took it out to 12-0 and the Kiwis looked a bit rattled. Whyte injected some life off the bench and clawed one back before a penalty on the bell gave Samoa an 8 point lead. But that was as good as it got for them as the Kiwis out-muscled, overpowered and overran them in a second half where the ball was seldom out of the NZ attacking zone. Silly penalties didn’t help either.

 

For the Kiwis, Brown was far and away their best, always a danger as he picked and chose his plays and runners. He was a worthy ‘player of the match’. The NZ bench was also very influential – big, strong, mobile – with Whyte particularly eye-catching. Luai was as energetic and burrowing as always for the men in blue, To’o gave it everything, and Tavega was solid off the bench. But once the Kiwis got a sniff, there was no denying them.

 

The World Cup next years looms as a fascinating tussle between the Kangaroos and the Kiwis but don’t expect the Samoans to just make up the numbers.

 

Speaking of which, in the (very) early game, the Cook Islands Aitu continued their good form with a crushing 58-6 win over the South African Rhinos in a World Cup qualifier.

 

A few random 2025 memories:

Glitz in Las Vegas;

The aerial acrobatics of Xavier Coates, Julia Robinson, et al;

Penrith coming from last on the ladder after Round 12 to be within four minutes of making the Grand Final;

The DCE fiasco;

Tom Dearden’s cover tackle on Brian To’o in State of Origin;

The emergence of Ethan Strange;

AJ stalking the try-scoring record;

The Rabbitohs were rubbish;

Brisbane’s three double-digit, come-from-behind finals wins;

The redemption of Ben Hunt.

 

Signing off:

By my calculation, it’s now 106 sleeps until it all starts again in Las Vegas on February 28th. See you then!

 

 

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Our writers are independent contributors. The opinions expressed in their articles are their own. They are not the views, nor do they reflect the views, of Malarkey Publications.

 

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