The New Zealand Rugby League has all but shut the door on the possibility of the Kiwis playing the Kangaroos at the end of the season after two previous approaches from Australian officials amounted to nothing.
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With New Zealand set to take Australia's ranking as league's No.1 Test nation after last Sunday's historic 26-12 win in Brisbane, many are asking why the Kangaroos aren't scheduled to play again for 12 months, but Fairfax Media can reveal that officials contacted their Kiwi counterparts late last year and again earlier this year about playing at the end of the season.
The NZRL is keen to host a Test in Auckland as the Kiwis have not played there for three years and the interest is high after three consecutive wins over Australia, including the final of last season's Four Nations and their first mid-season victory since 1998.
However, the Kiwis recently committed to playing Leeds on October 23 in the lead up to their three-Test series against England in a match that will celebrate the 125th anniversary of Headingly Stadium.
The tour will feature the first rugby league Test at the 54,000-seat Olympic Stadium in London on November 7, for which more than 15,000 tickets have already been sold.
"We want to play more football at home but we have already been asked twice to play Australia at the end of year, both times we said yes and both times something happened to get in the road of that so we have moved on. We have got Leeds and England to focus on," NZRL chief executive Phil Holden said.
"It is a conversation we would always be open to having but I don't know if we could make it work now from a scheduling perspective."
As a result, Australia will not play an end-of-season Test for the first time since 1993 - a move Holden said New Zealand would never contemplate.
"The difference is that international football is our lifeblood," Holden said. "We don't have a professional competition, so to fund our organisation, drive our high performance, drive commercial momentum and to create visibility and profile for the game, international football is really important to us. We play every year, that is our objective."
The NZRL is now expected to push to host next year's ANZAC Test in Auckland and by then could be firmly established as the world's No.1 team if they win the upcoming series against England.
"Our issue is that we just can't afford to have a team of nomads," Holden said. "It is a New Zealand representative team, so they need to play at home and I think we have earned the right to do that.
"The last time there was a Test in Auckland was early 2012, so that was quite a while ago and last year's Four Nations was the first time they had played more than one game at home in nearly four years."
With the proposal to play Australia at the end of the season falling through, Holden said the Kiwis explored the possibility of playing Samoa or another Pacific nation before the team left, but it was decided there was not enough time.
"In an ideal world we could have looked at playing someone on the way, but the reality is that we are going to be in the UK for nearly four weeks and in terms of a player welfare perspective we have decided that is where we have got to put the focus and make that work," Holden said.
"We are looking forward to what should be a pretty special tour; we are playing in London at the Olympic Stadium and that is going to be quite special in itself."
