TO be honest, it hasn't been a great month for international rugby league.

We are completely reliant on upsets to give us meaningful series and tournaments. And in six Four Nations pool matches, we've had non. Zilch. Nada.

The best thing that's happened in the Four Nations was the 42,000 crowd at Eden Park but again, many of those were fickle (and, by the looks of things, drunk) rugby union fans who may have been coaxed back had the Kiwis beaten Australia, which they did not come close to doing.

Rotorua was probably the low point of this year's Four Nations. New Zealand beating Papua New Guinea 76-12 plus 3800 paying spectators equals. Oh dear.

Aside from that, another ray of sunshine was Wales winning the European Cup to qualify for next year's Four Nations. But in 12 months we'll be relying on the same thing again - an upset - to get floating fans hooked.

Which brings us to this Saturday at Suncorp Stadium: Australia v New Zealand. We still need that upset.

The Kiwis are a curious team. In the ANZAC Test, they were blown away at stages, seemed to have the ability to get back into the match but also seemed to think they had a lot more time to do so than they did. It was almost rugbyleagus interuptus when the siren sounded in Melbourne.

Against England, Stephen Kearney's side seemed to be playing well within itself in beating England by 14. Tries went begging when players looked outside instead of inside or just chose to take the tackle. The performance against the Kumuls was overwhelming but not perfect.

And then there was last week, when the Aussies took every chanced handed them, while the New Zealanders had a bad case of dear-in-the-headlights, stirring haka aside.

I would like to confidently predict a Kiwi revival on Saturday night but it's difficult to do so - that's because they played each other just last weekend, which is a situation which should not be permitted in future. Let the final favourites open the pool stage, not close it.

There seems to be two solutions doing the rounds for improving the Four Nations - and they are completely opposite in nature. One is to kick out England, which is completely daft since financially they underpin the whole concept every second year.

The other is to expand it to six teams, with sides four, five and six playing off for a semi spot - as in the last World Cup. The problem with that is...what would be the difference between a "Six Nations" and the 2013 World Cup.

No, clearly the answer is to bolster the fourth team in whatever way possible. That game in Rotorua should be an abject lesson to those purists who want players to commit to one country for their entire lives. Wales should already be out recruiting Aussies and Kiwis with family histories in the Valleys because the side that beat France would fare only marginally better against the heavyweights than the poor old Kumuls did.