Kangaroos coach Mal Meninga overlooks James Tedesco, Kalyn Ponga, Origin captains for Pacific Championship selection
Mal Meninga has dropped a major selection bombshell by overlooking both James Tedesco and Kalyn Ponga for Kangaroos selection, with the list of surprise omissions and debutants not ending there. See the full squad.
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A shellacking at the hands of New Zealand has ushered in a changing of the guard for Kangaroos coach Mal Meninga. Meninga, with one eye on the beating from the Kiwis 12 months ago and the other on the 2026 World Cup, declared last rites on Monday on the national careers of James Tedesco and Daly Cherry-Evans.
The last time an Australian side failed to feature one of the pair was the 2017 World Cup final. Between them, Tedesco and Cherry-Evans have played 34 Tests and been mainstays of the regime under Meninga.
They were magnificent servants for their country but Father Time and the need to plan for the future has caught up with them. Newcastle superstar Kalyn Ponga was another story, his omission coming after an availability furore prompted a heart-to-heart with Meninga.
After changing his mind and making himself available for his country, Ponga was overlooked anyway when Meninga announced his 21-man squad for the tournament on Monday morning.
Only nine players survived last year’s defeat to the Kiwis - Melbourne five-eighth Cameron Munster, North Queensland centre Valentine Holmes, Dolphins prop Tim Flegler and Brisbane centre Kotoni Staggs were unavailable due to injury.
The bolter in the squad was Penrith prop Lindsay Smith, who was one of four players from the premiers to make the cut. Meninga conceded it was a tough call to Tedesco.
“It was a difficult conversation,” Meninga said of Tedesco.
“It’s a bit of an evolution for the team on the back of what happened in the Pacific Championships last year.
“With that in the back of our minds (we made the call to drop him). Origin was really important for discussion across the selection table and form into the finals as well.
“It was a difficult conversation, but bear in mind that Teddy played game one for the NSW Blues, and then games two and three Dylan was the fullback. We chose based on Origin form.”
Cherry-Evans Manly teammate Jake Trbojevic, who captained NSW this year, was also left out. Penrith co-captain Isaah Yeo will lead the side.
“The two grand final team captains are involved,” Meninga said.
“It’s like anything, we sit around a table trying to select the best 21, you look at the diversity and the flexibility of your footy team as well.
“When we sit down to select our 21, we’ve got a whole array of players who can play different positions.”
Smith was one of seven debutants named in the squad alongside Mitch Barnett,. Bradman Best, Tom Dearden, Zac Lomax, Reece Robson and Mitchell Moses.
Moses hasn’t played since the final game of the Origin series after suffering injury but was passed fit for selection.
“We discussed that around the table, we decided when he came into Origin II he won man of the match off the back of a fairly long break,” Meninga said.
“When we’re trying to look at evolving the team, Mitchell deserves to be there even though he’s only played a handful of games but he’s been tremendous for his club and his state.”
The decision to overlook Ponga came after the Knights sensation was involved in an availability furore, having initially ruled himself out of contention for the championships to focus on his club duties with Newcastle.
Ponga performed a u-turn after being warned that he risked being banned for club games but failed to make the final cut after Meninga plumped for Penrith No.1 Dylan Edwards with Tom Trbojevic also in the squad.
“We consider Kalyn a specialist fullback so when we look at a team we think Dylan is the number one fullback in the game for the Kangaroos so we choose Dylan in front of Kalyn,” Meninga said.
“Then we look at the versatility of players, for example someone like Ben Hunt and Matt Burton can play numerous positions in the footy team. We consider Kalyn a specialist fullback and that’s why he’s been left out.”
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