Brits up against it - Stuart

Australia coach Ricky Stuart believes Great Britain have a lot to live up to in the Tri-Nations if the series opener between his team and New Zealand is anything to go by.

Stuart's men and the Kiwis went toe-to-toe in a physical encounter at Mount Smart Stadium in Auckland, with the visitors absorbing everything thrown at them to eventually emerge 30-18 winners last week.

"There was a real standard set in last week's first game of the series and they have a huge standard to get to," said Stuart. "Both the Kiwi and the Australian teams are now comfortable knowing that they can get to that level of intensity and the physical part of the game which was shown last week."

Stuart has nonetheless been involved with the game at the top level both as a player and a coach for enough years to know that Great Britain will provide both the Australian and New Zealand teams with stiff competition.

"Great Britain are yet to show that - I've got no doubt they will - but both teams have shown last week that they've got the capacity to endure that for 80 minutes," he added.

"It's a long series and it's going to take a team that's got a lot of healthy players on board come the back end of this, because I can see it's going to be a very physical series.

"I had Willie Mason describe the game there last week as physical as an Origin game. He said that he hadn't seen - and he wasn't on the field for long because of his (eye) injury - but he hadn't seen a game with such intensity."