Rugby league 2024, Pacific Championships news, Mal Meninga on Australian Kangaroos team changes ahead of New Zealand game

Kangaroos coach Mal Meninga has no plans to shake up his spine despite a "clunky" start to the Pacific Championships.

Australia beat Tonga 18-0 on Friday night but scored only three tries, one of which was a long range effort resulting from a Tom Trbojevic intercept.

Viewers were dismayed the star-studded Aussie line-up could only manufacture two other tries, especially after the Jillaroos crossed the stripe 17 times in an 84-0 demolition of Papua New Guinea.

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The new-look spine of Dylan Edwards, Tom Dearden, Mitchell Moses, and Harry Grant struggled to replicate their individual NRL and Origin form from this year.

Meninga explained the team only had two proper training sessions before the game, and the preparation was hampered when Moses left camp for the birth of his second child.

Mitchell Moses of Australia passes the ball. Getty

"We were clunky, so obviously we've got to give consideration to cohesion, we've got to make sure the team is ready to go for game two," he told SEN Breakfast with Vossy and Brandy.

"Bringing new players in might be fraught with danger.

"My thoughts at the moment are to keep cohesion going and keep the team together.

"We can't change our spine, that's the important part.

"Really happy with attitude, happy with intent. The thing we concentrated on was our defence and we can move forward now.

Watch the 2024 Pacific Championships on Nine and 9Now.

"We've got a 10-day prep leading into the New Zealand game so that's going to be a focus around how we play with the football in attack."

Ben Hunt (halfback or hooker), Reece Robson (hooker), and Matt Burton (five-eighth) are the spine players in the Kangaroos squad who could be added to the line-up.

Unfortunately for them it seems they will again be warming the bench for game two against New Zealand on Sunday.

Meninga did not rule out making changes to other parts of the team ahead of the trip to Christchurch.

The likes of Bradman Best (centre), Liam Martin (backrow) and Lindsay Smith (forward) were not used in game one.

"It is difficult to manage... new footy team, you've got two games in a row which is great, then you've got a buy which makes things a bit difficult," Meninga said.

"And they've got to go away from camp (after game two), we can't keep them in camp... then you've got the preparation leading into the final, and we haven't even made the final yet.

"We need a good performance on Sunday... to make sure we even play in the final.

"We've talked about (the team), obviously we need to announce a team this (Tuesday) afternoon but that doesn't mean that will be the final team.

"I'm thinking in the back of my mind that we probably should go with the same footy team."

Meninga confirmed he has spoken to the Kangaroos about last year's horror 30-0 Pacific Championships loss at the hands of the Kiwis.

"We got that out of the way early, we talked about who we were as a team, get that mindset happening before you even talk about footy," he said.

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