12 Oct 2008

No quarter given in All Golds vs Maori

12:15 pm on 12 October 2008

The All Golds rugby league side take on New Zealand Maori in New Plymouth this afternoon, in a warm-up for most of both teams ahead of big games at the World Cup.

The All Golds are the Kiwis minus some UK-based players and feature the veterans Ruben Wiki, Logan Swann and Stacey Jones, who's coming out of retirement for the game.

The Kiwis take on the Kangaroos in a fortnight in league's World Cup opener in Sydney, while the Maori play the Australian Indigenous side in the curtain-raiser.

The Kiwis also play Tonga in Auckland next Saturday.

It's the final New Zealand appearance for Wiki and Swann - and probably Jones too - and Wairangi Koopu's swansong with the Maori, but Frank Endacott, who's the technical advisor for the All Golds, says it's not going to be a game of festival match and that'll be clear from the first set of tackles.

The game kicks off just after 5 o'clock.