rugby league historian David Middleton<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\nHugh McGahan scored eight in three Tests, courtesy of a six-try performance against Papua New Guinea in his third Kiwi outing in 1983.<\/p>\n
The forward went scoreless in his fourth match, meaning McLean can leapfrog the former Kiwi with a double on Sunday afternoon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kangaroos legends Reg Gasnier and Willie Carne also scored eight in their first four Test matches, with Ian Schubert, Billy Slater and Josh Addo-Carr scoring seven.<\/p>\n
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Casey McLean Try<\/p>\n
McLean turned plenty of heads with four tries on debut last season, but coach Stacey Jones has been most pleased with his development throughout the Kiwis 2025 Pacific Championships campaign.<\/p>\n
“When he first came into camp I didn’t realise he was 18 years old,” Jones said. “He was really impressive. You’ve got to take your hat off to what they do at Penrith, the way they produce these players.<\/p>\n
“He’s 19 years old but he doesn’t hold back on anything. He’s very productive in everything we do, whether it’s a meeting or on the training field. He’s not overconfident but he’s confident in himself.”<\/p>\n
McLean’s development has triggered plenty of excitement among New Zealand fans as they look to make a statement leading into next year’s World Cup.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The winger is one of a number of talented youngsters that Jones has developed, with Keano Kini and Naufahu Whyte also impressing since making their debuts last season.<\/p>\n
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Keano Kini Try<\/p>\n
Having worked closely with McLean throughout the past few weeks, Nicoll-Klokstad said the challenge now is to take his game to the next level.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It’s still early days for Casey,” Nicoll-Klokstad said. “For such a young kid he’s got a good head on his shoulders and that’s a credit to his parents and family and the ones around him keeping him humbled and grounded.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“But he also wants to be the best at whatever he does, so that’s a really good kid to be around.”<\/p>\n
Leading Kiwis Try Scorers after four Tests<\/p>\n
McGahan 8
\nMcLean 7*
\nTuivasa-Sheck 6
\nNigel Vagana 6
\nJellick 6
\nKevin Iro 6<\/p>\n
Leading Kangaroos Try Scorers after four Tests<\/p>\n
Reg Gasnier 8
\nWillie Carne 8
\nIan Schubert 7
\nBilly Slater 7
\nJosh Addo-Carr 7<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Kiwis have vowed to unleash try-scoring weapon Casey McLean as they chase victory in Sunday’s Pacific Cup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-265472","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}