Kangaroo Tours are back.

Fairfax Media understands the first Australian tour of Britain since 2003 will be announced within a fortnight, for either 2019 or 2020. Officials from the two countries agreed in principle to the resurrection of one of the game's most treasured institutions in meetings around the RLIF Congress in Liverpool last week.

Great Britain may also end a decade of dormancy for the incoming Australian tour, replacing England for fully-fledged Ashes Tests. The last extended Kangaroo Tour was in 1994.

"We wanted to win it and show everybody back home what it means to us to play for the Kangaroos," said captain Cameron Smith after the 34-8 win over New Zealand.

"We want everyone back home to get behind this team, get behind the international game. Forty thousand people here without the home team, that's a fantastic result, a fantastic atmosphere for us.

"It's where these games need to be played, in the big stadiums.

"We spoke about how we wanted to go about it, rebuild the international game and put it back on top where it needs to be. We've made some pretty good steps throughout this whole season to do that."

Meninga's 2016 side evoked memories of some of the teams he spearheaded in the northern hemisphere in 1982, 1986 and 1994 as they played with precision, extravagant skill and occasionally even grace to rack up a 24-0 halftime lead at Anfield.

The win lifted Australia back to the top of rugby league's world rankings for the first time in two years.

While a lack of competitiveness is seen by many as a flaw for international rugby league, Meninga believes that by playing well, behaving as ambassadors and leaving healthy gate takings everywhere they go, the Australians can be a beacon for the sport the way the All Blacks are for rugby union and the Harlem Globetrotters are for basketball.

With six tries in all on the lush Anfield surface on Sunday, the players held up their end of that bargain.

"It's a great era for us at the moment with all these great players playing our game," said Meninga. "When they come together it's exciting.

"People come along and want to watch them. Even over here in England, the crowd today was fantastic, the atmosphere was great. They started to applaud these guys when they started to turn it on a bit and show their skills.

"We're in awe of them, most of the time they play. They're so consistent."

Centre Josh Dugan posted two of the tries. By holding up in-goal centre Greg Inglis and fullback Darius Boyd either side of halftime, David Kidwell's Kiwis interrupted the Kangaroos momentum enough to avoid what could have been a  humiliating scoreline.

But new man Kidwell still faced questions about his future in the job afterwards.

"It's my first tour," he said. "I've definitely learned a lot but I just said to the boys in there, we've got to get back our belief.

"I'll be more prepared than I was [next year] getting the job two weeks before."

Blake Ferguson, voted Harry Sunderland Medal winner as Australian player of the campaign, scored after only a couple of minutes from a scrum win and the $168,000 first prizemoney was already headed to League Central with the game barely underway.

The Kiwis tried a few trick shots to scare their opponents early ("We tried playing our Kiwi football," recalled Adam Blair) but when the flick passes and crossfield kicks resulted in nothing more than Josh Dugan's first try, they were a broken group.

Halfback Cooper Cronk was voted man of the series, Brisbane's Boyd the man of the match.

AUSTRALIA 34 (Josh Dugan 2, Trent Merrin, Blake Ferguson, Darius Boyd tries; Johnathan Thurston 4 goals) beat NEW ZEALAND 8 (Jordan Kahu 2 tries) at Anfield, Liverpool. Referee: Ben Cummins (Australia). Crowd: 40,042