League: Laughter the best medicine for Kiwis

Kearney knows he has his team where he wants them. Photo / Mark Mitchell

It's an oldie but a goody _ convince someone to take their clothes off as part of an initiation and then grab the clothes and make a run for it.

Certainly the Kiwis thought they were pretty funny when they pulled exactly that swifty on their junior counterparts at the end of yesterday's opposed training session.

The laughing and hollering was something more akin to a bunch of blokes on a stag do than an international sports team preparing for a must-win encounter with a team that had their measure the last time they met.

"Too much was it?" coach Stephen Kearney asked when questioned about his side's light mood.

The quip was rhetorical. He knows he has his team exactly where he wants them.

On Tuesday night he even shipped in a Samoan comedy act to lighten the mood.

Such is the quality of resources at Kearney's disposal that there is an unprecedented level of expectation growing around this side.

Many are picking them to win the Four Nations, but dwelling on such thoughts is the last thing he wants his players doing.

"We are not concerned about favouritism or last year," Kearney said. "Our focus is on making sure we get our performance right and if we do that we will give ourselves a good chance."

Halfback Nathan Fien also felt the team was in a good space.

"That's the way it is in the Kiwis' camps: everyone is happy,"

Fien said. "There is a good feeling out there. We were pretty sharp [in training]."

Like the clothes-nicking gag, Kearney's selections for Saturday night have an air of the tried and trusted.

The halves/hooker combination of Fien at halfback and Thomas Leuluai _ with Issac Luke coming off the bench _ may be a reversal of their current club roles, but it is the formula Kearney used in the 2008 World Cup triumph and in last year's Four Nations.

"I'm not too sure it is a formula we are looking back to [from] two years ago," he said. "For this situation and this week it is what we think is going to be best for us _ that's why we have gone with it."

Jason Nightingale holding the right- wing berth ahead of Sam Perrett is the only change that represents a shift in direction.

Leaving out Perrett, a player who has hardly put a foot wrong in a Kiwis shirt, was the toughest call of his coaching career, Kearney said.

Nightingale's form over the closing weeks of the NRL season, when he scored vital tries to guide the Dragons to the title, had made his case for a start overwhelming. Even so, a "width of hair" separated the pair.

"I really have to say it was one of the most difficult decisions of my time as a coach in terms of the quality of player I am leaving out," Kearney said. "But then you see what Jason has done in his last three performances. In the prelim semi, if he hadn't come up with some of the plays he did that night I don't know if St George would have gone through to the Grand Final."

After years of being an afterthought, Nightingale was happy to be a first choice but he felt he still had a long way to go to become a Kiwis regular.

"I have got to prove myself on the weekend and in every game after that," he said.

"I don't think [my game] has gone to another level. I've just been doing the same things, maybe a few more things are coming off and going my way. I'm riding a bit of luck at the moment."

Simon Mannering slotting into the starting line-up in place of Frank Pritchard _ who reverts to the bench _ and Frank-Paul Nuuausala taking Sika Manu's place are the other tweaks to the side that dismantled Samoa.

England coach Steve McNamara is expected to name a 19-man squad today.