Meninga reads riot act for semi

KANGAROOS coach Mal Meninga has put his Australian stars on notice after blasting their attitude at training in the lead-up to tonight’s World Cup semi-final against Fiji.

The world champions will run on to Suncorp Stadium under no illusions of the standards expected by Meninga, who says a sloppy session on Tuesday represents the ultimate wake-up call.

The Australians are expected to comfortably dispose of a Fiji team they flogged 64-0 at the last World Cup in 2013, but Meninga is far from satisfied with the mental approach.

After a gruelling trip to Darwin, where Kangaroos players lost up to 3kg in their 46-0 defeat of Samoa, Australia bumbled its way through a training run that triggered concerns of a Fiji boilover.

“I wasn’t real happy with our session the other day,” Meninga said.

“It was our worst training session on Tuesday — we have some improvement to do.

“There was a lot of dropped ball, a few mistakes, that is not the standards we want.

“I want to make sure every time we train, we train with the right intensity and the right execution . . . that is part of the values every time we do something as Kangaroos.

“I understand we are on the back of the Darwin trip, the recovery after that takes a bit out of you, but we still need to train well. We have been tracking well and the players have been performing well, but that session is a reality check to get us back on track.”

Kangaroos pivot Michael Morgan is confident the worst training session of the tournament will remove any “rust” to ensure Australia is mentally and physically primed for Fiji.

“We are training with Australia so there shouldn’t be any bad sessions,” Morgan said.

“But the energy is good, it was just a couple of dropped balls, which can be from not training for a few days and having to get the rust out.

“We hadn’t touched the ball since the weekend [defeat of Samoa], so I think that’s all it was.

“Everyone is fit and healthy — the big thing was getting our weight back on.”