Steve Deane: Kiwis a sideshow to main Wembley act

Anthony Watmouth of the Kangaroos tackles Kevin Locke of the Kiwis. Photo / Getty Images

Opinion

It's hard to remember an international league tournament capturing less of the New Zealand public's imagination than the current Four Nations.

The Kiwis' awful pre-tournament warm-up in Newcastle, coupled with a flattening out of the nation's serotonin levels post Rugby World Cup, accounts for much of the indifference. The rest likely comes from the knowledge that injuries and defections have reduced this Kiwis side to a shadow of what it could be.

It's hard to see a match against Wales in the middle of the night getting the juices flowing in any but the most difficult to extinguish of diehards.

The fact is the Kiwis are very much the sideshow on a weekend when English league appears to be making the classic error of battling on two major fronts.

The credibility of the international game won't be at stake when the Kiwis whip a Welsh side comprised mainly of players who haven't whiled away too many hours in leek-filled valleys (here's looking at you, Tyson Frizell). But it most certainly will be when England face the Kangaroos.

It's almost five years to the day that England (or Great Britain as they were pre-2008) recorded their last victory over Australia. Since that 23-12 shock in Sydney on November 4, 2006, England have lost the five matches between the nations by a combined score of 191-60.

Their best effort was a 26-16 defeat in Wigan in 2009, their worst the 52-4 flogging at the 2008 World Cup.

The series whitewash of the disgraceful 2007 Kiwis aside, England have been quite dreadful for quite a long time. They haven't claimed a series against or involving Australia since 1970, when they won back-to-back tests at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

For more than 40 years - an entire lifetime for many of today's crop of beaten down British fans - an occasional one-off win against the Kangaroos is about as good as it has got. This England team, then, bears a significant historical burden.

Reinforced as they are with Kiwi Rangi Chase and Aussies Jack Reed and Chris Heighington, and boasting a genuine strike weapon in Sam Tomkins, there is hope that 2011 may finally be England's breakthrough year.

Hope has never been in short supply in English league though. It's just that it always turns out to be of the false kind.

Given such a litany of failure, the decision to face the Australians at Wembley is, frankly, crackers.

In 2005, then Great Britain coach Brian Noble lamented the decision of British administrators to schedule a test against the Kiwis in London, at Loftus Road, the home of Queens Park Rangers. Of the 15,558 spectators, about 58 were supporting the "home side". The British were pounded 42-26, Noble was left muttering about men in suits plotting against him and the Kiwis went on to win the title.

Wembley has been a happier hunting ground for Great Britain and has long been the home of the Challenge Cup final, but the decision to host an international double header at the revamped national stadium is another doomed attempt to spread the 13-man gospel.

League's attempts to gain a meaningful foothold in the south have been as tireless as they have been hopeless. No amount of wooing is going to convince Londoners to fall in love with the game, end of story.

A crowd of 50,000 at the 90,000-seat venue will be considered a grand success - and will at least avoid the embarrassing spectacle of a mainly empty stadium - but the vast majority of such a crowd will be expat antipodeans and northerners on a day trip to the big smoke. There will be no revolution.

What, then, is the point of giving up a serious chunk of the home advantage they would have enjoyed in, say, Wigan?

The most likely scenario is that England will flop on both fronts. Another opportunity will be lost. Black clouds will block out the light, crops will fail and famine and pestilence will sweep the land. Pretty much your average Yorkshire winter, really.