1985 Kangaroo tour of New Zealand

After long time coach Frank Stanton stepped down from representative coaching duties after Australia's successful defence of The Ashes in 1984 against the touring Great Britain Lions, the Australian Rugby League re-appointed 1977 Rugby League World Cup Final winning coach and former Parramatta Eels coach Terry Fearnley as head coach of the Kangaroos. The team was captained by Queensland captain Wally Lewis who had captained the team since the 1984 Ashes series. Balmain's New South Wales captain-in waiting Wayne Pearce was chosen as the team vice-captain after Blues captain Steve Mortimer announced his retirement from representative football and declined to tour.

The team consisted of 19 players, 13 of them from the Winfield Cup with all being from New South Wales except for red-headed Manly-Warringah back rower Paul Vautin who was the only Queensland player selected from the Sydney Premiership. 5 of the 6 Queensland based players were drawn from the Brisbane Rugby League competition with only hooker Greg Conescu picked from country Queensland as he was playing for Past Brothers in Gladstone.

While he was named Australian coach, Terry Fearnley had also been appointed as New South Wales State of Origin coach in 1985. After losing the single Origin games played in 1980 and 1981, as well as the 1982, 1983 and 1984 Origin series, the once dominant Blues won their first ever Origin series in 1985 after winning games 1 and 2. In what was to prove a case of bad planning, the test series and the tour of NZ were scheduled to take place between games 2 and 3 of the Origin series.

Rumours soon surfaced that Fearnley and Lewis did not get along on tour. Lewis later confirmed this by admitting in television interviews that the pair hated each other while Fearnley openly admitted that in light of the circumstances he could have done a better job in bringing the team together (Steve Mortimer, who had formed a close friendship with Lewis since they first teamed together in the Australian halves in 1981 and were room mates on the 1982 Kangaroo tour, later also said that he regretted his decision not to tour as he believed his relationships with both of them could have acted as a bridge and eased the tension). Wally Lewis also publicly stated that he believed Fearnley openly favoured vice-captain Wayne Pearce, as well as the rest of the Kangaroos who were from his NSW team. At one point before the third test in Auckland, Lewis claimed to have caught Fearnley and Pearce going over team selection in Fearnley's hotel room, something strongly denied by the pair.

Fearnley himself created controversy on the tour. In the book King Wally which was published in 1987, Wally Lewis claimed that Fearnley had said of team member Michael O'Connor, a NSW player, "Can't play, no heart. Lucky he can kick goals or he wouldn't be here" (a former Wallabies rugby union international, O'Connor was the only player not to play a test on the tour). The publishing of this story led to some animosity over the coming years between Lewis and O'Connor despite them being regular Test team mates until the end of 1989. But the biggest controversy came from the team selection for the third test. Fearnley dropped five players from the second test win, four of them Queenslanders (Chris Close, Mark Murray, Greg Dowling and Greg Conescu - Close and Dowling dropped to the bench. Noel Cleal who played from the bench in the 2nd Test was the only NSW player dropped), which caused all hell to break loose and prompted Queensland Rugby League Chairman, Federal Senator Ron McAuliffe, to publicly condemn the dropping of the four Queensland players from a winning Test side, saying "Its a football assassination and beyond all reasoning. And there can be no reasonable excuse for it".^[2]

With the replacement players in place (Steve Ella, Des Hasler, Peter Tunks and Benny Elias), the disjointed Kangaroos would go on to lose the third test 18–0, the first time they had been held scoreless since losing 19–0 to Great Britain in the 3rd Ashes series Test of the 1956–57 Kangaroo tour. Such was the animosity in the group between the NSW and Qld players that according to second row forward Paul "Fatty" Vautin (one of 4 Queensland players who retained their spot in the starting XIII) in his book Fatty: The Strife and Times of Paul Vautin, two of the dropped players Mark Murray and Greg Conescu, acted as the Australian teams statisticians for the game and that both recorded a number of errors that were actually made by team mates to the players who directly replaced them in the side, Hasler and Elias.^[3]

Terry Fearnley stepped down as Australian coach following the tour. He would be replaced in 1986 by 1956–57 Kangaroo tourist and Canberra Raiders head coach Don Furner.

As a result of the problems during the tour, the Australian Rugby League made a number of decisions for future Australian teams, including:

• No current State of Origin coach can also be the current Australian coach.
• Mid-season Test series or single Tests will only take place before or after the Origin series and not during one to avoid bringing the NSW vs Qld rivalry into the Australian team.

* Tests and (as sub) not included in games totals.
* Table includes Brisbane Test.

Player	Club	Position(s)	Games (as sub)	Tests (as sub)	Tries	Goals	F/Goals	Points
Noel Cleal	Manly Warringah Sea Eagles	Second-row	3	1 (1)	5	0	0	20
Chris Close	Manly Warringah Sea Eagles	Centre	2	2 (1)	2	0	0	8
Greg Conescu	Past Brothers Gladstone (Qld)	Hooker	2	2	0	0	0	0
Greg Dowling	Wynnum Manly Seagulls (Qld)	Prop	2	2 (1)	0	0	0	0
Benny Elias	Balmain Tigers	Hooker	2 (1)	1	0	0	0	0
Steve Ella	Parramatta Eels	Fullback, Centre, Five-eighth	3	1 (1)	2	0	0	8
John Ferguson	Eastern Suburbs Roosters	Wing	3	3	2	0	0	8
Des Hasler	Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles	Halfback, Wing	3	1	5	0	0	20
Garry Jack	Balmain Tigers	Fullback	2 (2)	3	4	0	0	16
Wally Lewis (c)	Wynnum Manly Seagulls (Qld)	Five-eighth	2	3	1	0	0	4
Mal Meninga	Souths Magpies (Qld)	Centre	2	3	3	11	0	34
Mark Murray	Redcliffe Dolphins (Qld)	Halfback	2 (1)	2	0	0	0	0
Michael O'Connor	St George Dragons	Centre, Fullback	4	–	3	13	0	38
Wayne Pearce (vc)	Balmain Tigers	Lock	3	3	0	0	0	0
John Ribot	Redcliffe Dolphins (Qld)	Wing	4	3	6	3	0	24
Steve Roach	Balmain Tigers	Prop	2 (1)	3	0	0	0	0
Peter Tunks	Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs	Prop	4	1 (1)	0	0	0	0
Paul Vautin	Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles	Second-row	1	2	0	0	0	0
Peter Wynn	Parramatta Eels	Second-row, Lock	1	3	0	0	0	0

* stats only for games played in New Zealand. First Test in Brisbane not included here.
Leading Try Scorer

• 5 by Des Hasler

Leading Point Scorer

• 38 by Michael O'Connor (3 tries, 13 goals)

Largest Test Attendance

• 19,132 – Second test vs New Zealand at Carlaw Park

Largest non-test Attendance

• 18,000 – Australia vs Auckland at Carlaw Park