It's a bit rough questioning Semi Radradra's commitment to the Australian jersey. At least he has asked for it. As for the 13 Queenslanders in the squad for next weekend's Test against New Zealand, the Kangaroos jersey has been too often accepted with more of a sense of duty than with ferocious pride and passion.

It was the Reds and Wallabies rugby union halfback Peter Slattery who sang the north-of-the-border anthem, and inadvertently said what everyone else was thinking: "It's great to be Australian, but it's even better to be a Queenslander."

In rugby league, we've seen this played out in the mediocre output of the Kangaroos in recent years. They have lost their last three Test matches to New Zealand, two in Brisbane and one, the 2014 Four Nations final, in Wellington. They have barely squeaked past England in their past two encounters. This is the Australian rugby league team. And for the first time in memory, they have been ordinary.

Should it be like this? We are in a golden age of Australian rugby league talent, yet it is not apparent in the Australian rugby league team's performances. For NSW followers of the game, a Test match is that rare occasion when we all want Johnathan Thurston to throw the cut-out pass across three men to find the gap runner with surgical precision; when we are all conspirators in Cooper Cronk's scheming; when we chortle along with Cameron Smith's eloquence in his role as assistant referee. This is when all of us want to see Matt Scott and Sam Thaiday busting skulls, and when a Greg Inglis run or try-saving tackle is a thing of universal, unanimous praise. Hell, it's the one day when we're cheering for Darius Boyd.

And for this enthusiastic support, what have the Queenslanders given us in return? Inconsistency. Washed-out mediocrity. You can almost sense them holding their noses as they share a dressing room with cockroaches. The best rugby league team in the world is not Australia, or New Zealand. It's Queensland. They know it, you know it. Mal knows it. Question is: How can he change it?

Mal Meninga's ambitions to be a national, rather than provincial, statesman lasted less than a minute the first time around. But as a captain of the Kangaroos, back in the 1990s, he was mighty. Queenslanders' antipathy towards New South Welshmen, and vice versa, was no less strong in those days, but as a player, Mal managed to unite the two states, to say, they might be rats and filth – but they're our rats and filth!

Can he do the same as Australian coach? It probably helps that his team is stacked with 13 Queenslanders (or 12 plus Inglis). But you do get a sense that the three New South Welshmen have been chosen with all the commitment of obedience to a legally mandated quota system. Paul Gallen, Josh Dugan and Blake Ferguson have been picked, but all out of position. It's like they've been given invites to a wedding, but have to sit at the children's table, to give them the message that they're only here because to omit them would provoke a brawl with the in-laws. Michael Jennings has earnt the tokenistic position of "19th man". If he's at the wedding, he's playing in the band, he has to leave by 10ten, and he should bring his own food and drink. 

Australia's newest talent: Parramatta's Semi Radradra. Photo: Getty Images

If Mal could really have his wishes, would he select Ferguson ahead of Corey Oates? Would there be no place for Anthony Milford? Would Gallen be a starter in front of Josh McGuire? It's doubtful. This Kangaroos team looks like a Queensland team with concessions, which it has been for several years now – in fact, the period during which it has performed below expectations.

To be honest, if it were Queensland playing New Zealand, Australia would never lose. So how does Mal bring this uneasy composite together and inject some Queensland fire? How does he get the likes of Thaiday and Corey Parker to play for the cockroaches Gallen, Ferguson and Dugan as if they're their mates? As Robespierre once asked himself and failed to answer, how does he engender a spirit of fraternity when he has been such a prime mover in the civil terror?

Hatred, the key ingredient for Origin, won't work. Any attempt to drum up loathing and detestation for the New Zealanders will be a transparently fake substitute for a Maroons camp. Nor will an appeal to pure professionalism. Tim Sheens has done that for several years with limited results. Passionless, insipid professionalism will be exploited and eaten up by the Kiwis (who, having the power of hatred on their side, are the Queenslanders of international league). Pride in the jersey? It hasn't worked, with these same players, for the past few years. Only Semi, in this dressing room, has shown that he wants this representative jersey above all others.

It's a tough ask for Mal. It will get even tougher if things go wrong at any stage, because in adversity, the first thing that will happen is Smith, Cronk, Thurston and Meninga will form a banana brains trust. (Just as, in victory, they forget themselves and sing the Queensland song.) Under stress, they like being Australians, but they love being Queenslanders.

Perhaps it's not up to Mal at all. He hasn't been part of the underwhelming Kangaroos performances of the past few years. Maybe he should throw up his hands, say, "I'm buggered", and walk out and leave it to them. The coach didn't embarrass himself with goal-line mistakes during last year's Anzac Test, it was the Queenslanders. The coach wasn't intimidated by the flesh-eating New Zealand pack, it was the timid Queensland forwards. Perhaps Mal should not try to paper over the interstate differences, but instead make the most of them. Look Thurston, Smith, Scott, Thaiday and company in the eye and tell them that the last three times they have worn the Kangaroos jersey, they have not just let Australia down. They have done something far, far worse. They have let Queensland down.