Australia’s next generation of rugby league stars have landed their first blow against New Zealand, bouncing the Kiwis 26-4 in Wollongong.
Fielding their least experienced Test team in 16 years, the Kangaroos controlled the first half before they sealed it in the second in front of 18,104 fans on Friday night.
The result avenged last year’s shock loss to the Kiwis in Auckland, and came with Australia fielding five debutants and just four players from their 2017 World Cup winning side.
Payne Haas was easily the best of the first-timers, dominating the middle with 153 metres in just 13 runs as became Australia’s youngest forward in 28 years.
Josh Papalii, David Klemmer and rookie Paul Vaughan were also powerful, each running more than the Kiwis’ best middle in Jared Waerea-Hargreaves.
Australia had just 94 Tests between them before kick off to New Zealand’s 186, but that didn’t show on the field.
Daly Cherry-Evans controlled the side nicely, outgunning Kiwis half Shaun Johnson who endured a difficult night in the black-and-white.
The Kangaroos’ first try came through an intercept, when Latrell Mitchell easily took a Johnson pass and put debutant Josh Addo-Carr away from inside his own end.
Tyson Frizell skipped over for Australia’s next, as he stepped onto a Daly Cherry-Evans short ball and stepped his way over the line.
After New Zealand scored through Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad, Australia were again the beneficiaries of another intercept after the break.
The ball this time went through eight sets of hands on the last, before Damien Cook scooped collected an Adam Blair offload and went 80 metres to score.
Cook was in the thick of the action again moments later.
After Johnson gave away a 20-metre tap with a poor bomb, the Kangaroos hooker stepped out of dummy-half late in the set and put James Tedesco under the posts.
It capped off a dominant performance, as the Kangaroos got through the match unscathed ahead of next week’s clash with Tonga in Auckland.