KEY POINTS:
The pursuit of world cups is becoming a national obsession and the Kiwis' quest for rugby league's version starts today against Australia.
Gary Kemble won't have a bar of rest and reconditioning, saying he will play his best 13 every time the Kiwis take the field.
But today's
test and the upcoming tour of Britain and France will go a long way to delivering the kind of depth the Kiwis coach will need if his side are to triumph in 12 months' time.
These tests are a chance for Kemble, who has been appointed through to the end of next year's World Cup, to develop combinations and impose his own style of play and management. The tour will also be a chance for the players and New Zealand public to get a better idea about the man who has taken over from the popular Brian McClennan.
"The timing for Gary couldn't have been more perfect with five tests this year and another couple next year," former Kiwis coach Frank Endacott says. "That's seven under the belt, and every one tough, which is a good amount. A coach should know his combinations by then, and Gary will."
The NZRL are finalising their programme leading into the World Cup. They have a test against Australia in Sydney on May 9, a game being marketed as Australia's centenary match, and they are hopeful of another a couple of weeks before the World Cup.
On top of this, the NZRL will stage their first Kiwi Roots match (Auckland vs the rest) as a Kiwi trial and it's understood they're optimistic of adding an All Golds vs England fixture a week out from the World Cup.
It's a busy programme against good opposition. While Australia have only the two tests against the Kiwis confirmed over the next 12 months, they don't need a lot of time together.
They have State of Origin and their key players - Darren Lockyer, Cameron Smith, Jonathan Thurston and Karmichael Hunt - are well used to playing with each other as Queensland team-mates. They also have a vast ocean of top players, as their lineup today illustrates.
New Zealand need all the games they can get.
"I think the heavy workload is important for us because we are starting to rebuild again without the likes of Ruben Wiki, Stacey Jones, Nigel Vagana and other senior players who have moved on," Kemble explains. "It's vitally important for us to get our combinations and team structure right before the World Cup and the next five weeks are a great opportunity for us to do that."
The crucial partnership is in the halves, where Jeremy Smith (Souths version) and Ben Roberts will team up for the first time. Benji Marshall, Thomas Leuluai and even Rangi Chase are in the wings but, for now, Kemble will go with Smith and Roberts.
As he's been at pains to point out, he will have no bar of reconditioning and rotation and will play his best 13 every time.
It's therefore up to others to wrestle the starting jerseys off Smith and Roberts in the next 12 months.
"We believe they will develop into a top-notch halfback, five-eighth pairing over the next five tests," Kemble says.
The rest of the backline is similarly green. Krisnan Inu is the veteran of one test, while Taniela Tuiaki and Luke Covell make their debuts today.
There are fewer combination issues in the forwards, where a number of the players have played together, and there is a lot more experience on deck within the squad.
Of course, it's hard to forget who's not available: Sonny Bill Williams, Marshall, Nathan Cayless, David Fa'alogo, Jerome Ropati, Manu Vatuvei and Iosia Soliola, among others.
They will add some genuine class and experience to the side when they return, meaning Kemble will have more than 30 players to choose from when the World Cup rolls around.
"I think we are building something special," he says, "and we will have a lot of players capable of playing test football. We haven't always been able to say that and I now think we are starting to build the sort of depth Australia have."
Kemble quickly went about winning the trust of the players soon after his appointment and visited or talked to most of them about his plans and his vision.
This was a shrewd move because many felt loyal to McClennan and were genuinely saddened his time came to a premature end.
McClennan had his own way of doing things and Kemble will need all of the next 12 months to implement and tweak his way. He will have a better chance of achieving that with players in tune with his approach and they seem to have responded well to his personable approac to play an attacking style of football and asked his players to support the ball carrier and push the pass when it's on.
Australia still think New Zealand rugby league is all about bash and crash and it is, to an extent, but it will interesting to see how this approach is translated.
There have been reports that Kemble has been charged by the NZRL board to achieve a winning ratio of 75 per cent, but Kemble laughed this off.
Given the quality of opposition, he's right to because that target is unrealistic.
Endacott has been the most successful Kiwis coach over the past 25 years but his winning percentage was 63 per cent (22 wins from 35 games) while McClennan achieved 43 per cent (six out of 14).
"Don't worry about Gary Kemble," Endacott says.
"He's a knowledgeable coach who's been around the scene for a while and, honestly, he should have been Kiwis coach before now."
He now has a chance to prove it.
The birth of a sport
It was in the industrial town of Aberdare in the south-west of Wales that international rugby league was born on January 1, 1908.
About 15,000 chilled spectators filed into a frozen Aberdare Athletic Ground to watch Wales defeat New Zealand 9-8 in an enthralling match.
The Kiwis led 8-3 at halftime but conceded two second-half tries, including one just before fulltime.
The Aberdare Leader seemed suitably impressed with what they saw.
"The spectators were greatly impressed with the next game, especially as the ball was always kept in play by virtue of the quickness in breaking up the scrummages with the abolition of the lineout," the reporter wrote. "In truth, it is a faster game than the old-fashioned amateur methods."
What the paper was referring to was the birth of rugby league out of rugby union. It was a relatively new game in Britain, born out of a split from rugby union over the refusal to allow players to be compensated for missing work.
The lack of compensation affected teams from the north of England the most and they formed their own competition, called the Northern Rugby Football Union or Northern Union.
Initially they played under rugby union laws but slowly introduced changes to differentiate between the two and speed the game up.
The most obvious were the reduction of sides from 15 to 13 players (the two flankers were removed), the abolition of lineouts and the devaluing of goals to two points in an attempt to have teams chase tries (then worth three points).
By the time the All Golds arrived in England in 1907, rucks and mauls had been replaced by a play-the-ball following a tackle and a 'ball-back' if the ball was kicked out on the full.
The 'Originals' All Blacks saw this new game when they toured Britain in 1905 and discussions about a professional competition in Australasia surfaced on their return.
In the meantime, a young visionary by the name of Albert Baskerville had his interest in the new game piqued when stumbling across an article that mentioned a huge crowd had watched a Northern Union game in Bradford.
He soon enlisted players, including a number of 1905 Originals, for a possible tour of Britain in the hope of making some money.
Initially they were called the Professional All Blacks but after one of their first matches on tour, in Sydney, the Sydney Morning Herald referred to them, in rather derogatory terms, as the All Golds because of the financial rewards they were receiving, and the name stuck.
In all, the All Golds played 35 matches on tour over nine months, including the narrow test loss to Wales on New Year's Day in 1908.
