Mal Meninga confident due to Australia's squad depth
Saturday 29 October 2016 14:20, UK
Australia coach Mal Meninga was pleased with the contribution of his back-up players as opened their Ladbrokes Four Nations campaign with a 54-12 victory over Scotland.
Meninga took the opportunity to rest a host of his more familiar faces, including Johnathan Thurston and Greg Inglis, and brought skipper Cameron Smith off halfway through his 46th appearance for his country.
Stand-off James Maloney scored 18 points on his debut while full-back Matt Moylan produced a man-of-the-match performance on his first appearance.
Yet, Australia's head coach admits it is possible that neither player will feature again in the tournament.
"That's the beauty of this team," he said. "We're 24 deep and they're all great players, they all deserve to be here.
"Our job is to get the best team out of all that but it's nice to have that competition. It's nice to have internal pressure amongst the players, they responded really well to it.
"Matt was exceptionally good, right from the start his touches were excellent. He was the players' player of the match so that's a big accolade for him. He's an exceptional player, certainly one for the future."
Australia never looked back after winger Blake Ferguson scored the first of their 10 tries after four minutes but Meninga paid tribute to Scotland's fightback which kept the final score down to respectable proportions.
"They were enthusiastic, defensively very aggressive," Meninga said. "I thought we started the game extremely well. That was one of our focuses and I thought we achieved that.
"They put us under pressure and we made a few errors. But at the end of the day we came through unscathed and with a pretty healthy scoreline."
Scotland looked destined for a humiliating defeat on their Four Nations debut after conceding three tries in the first 14 minutes and they trailed 30-0 before scrum-half Ryan Brierley, one of six new faces, scored their first try to spark a revival that enabled them to salvage some pride.
"The start of the game killed us a little bit," said Scotland's long-serving coach Steve McCormack. "We sat back and Australia played flat and fast and executed their plays really well.
"The way we dug in for the last 15 minutes of the first half set bit of a tone for the second half and our lads certainly got better as game went on.
"We ran out of steam with our bench towards the end. It was a tough night but we'll get better.
"We're playing in the toughest competition in the world and I'm really proud of the effort. We've got to learn lessons pretty quickly for next week and I can't wait to get the lads back in."
