KEY POINTS:
It was a Rite of Passage; a competition that via tube TV brought the New Zealand one-day team into our orange and brown and Formica-bedecked living rooms, and had us screaming our lungs out in the late evening air.
In the same summer that we caught our first glimpse of Goodbye Pork Pie we also received our first trip on the Australian tri-series express - and what a ride it turned out to be.
New Zealand beat Australia in their inaugural game of the 1980-81 competition, eliminated India to make the finals and went within a Trevor Chappell underarm of taking a 2-1 lead in the four-match finals.
They were heady times; John Wright and Bruce Edgar, Geoff Howarth and Mark Burgess, Richard Hadlee and Ewen Chatfield and Lance Cairns - and all wrapped up in brown paper-coloured uniforms.
The Australians, to many of us, played the part of villains expertly and appeared to revel in their work if the antics of Dennis Lillee and the Chappells were anything to go by.
How we loved to hate them, never mind their undoubted quality.
Remember now ... one ball left, six to tie, and walking to the wicket, Brian McKechnie - a man with a batting average of 13.50, who had never cleared the boundary rope in his previous 13 internationals, and who was only there as a late replacement for Gary Troup.
And these were the days when the Melbourne Cricket Ground was roughly the size of the Nullarbor Plains, and when there weren't any health and safety rules forcing organisers to create a buffer zone inside the fence.
No one had cleared it so far that day; in fact a six had not been hit during the previous six ODIs at the MCG, dating back more than a year to January 1980 when West Indian all-rounder Collis King collected the maximum.
It was a desperate act, borne of enormous pressure building on skipper Greg Chappell, who hadn't been able to prevent his side being eliminated from the inaugural tri-series finals the previous season.
But what a launching pad for New Zealand's involvement in the tri-series, now a 26-year history that includes eight attempts to get their hands on the silverware, five of which ended in a runners-up ribbon, and three of which finished with early elimination.
The next time New Zealand were back to the finals was in 1982-83, when they came up against not only a handy Australian outfit, but an outstanding England side containing the likes of David Gower, Ian Botham, Derek Randall, Allan Lamb and Bob Willis.
The highlight that season wasn't in the finals but during an epic one-dayer against England at the Adelaide Oval, when New Zealand successfully chased down a total of 296 courtesy of some middle-order heroics from Jeff Crowe, Cairns, Jeremy Coney and Hadlee.
There wasn't as much to smile about in the finals, New Zealand being caught on a green-top at Sydney and collapsing badly at Melbourne in the face of the hosts' 302.
But even then there was still a chance to write another chapter of New Zealand cricketing folklore; Cairns taking the opportunity of his team's predicament to blast six sixes in a whirlwind half-century.
The next finals attempt was in 1987-88 when the face of the New Zealand team had changed a shade, but little had been lost in terms of talent and ability.
Cairns had gone, as had Edgar and Coney, but Martin Crowe and Andrew Jones were quality replacements, as were paceman Danny Morrison and spinner John Bracewell.
New Zealand swept past Sri Lanka to qualify for the finals but were knocked out in two games, collapsing in the first game to lose by eight wickets, and ending up on the wrong-side of a weather-affected contest in the second.
The names were changing again when New Zealand next made the finals, in the summer of 1990-91, with Ken Rutherford, Gavin Larsen and Rod Latham joining fringe players such as Richard Reid and Richard Petrie.
Again they knocked over a useful England side en-route to the finals, having the better of a combination that could boast players such as Graham Gooch, Robin Smith, Lamb, Alec Stewart and Angus Fraser.
But again they faltered in the home straight, losing the first final to Australia by six wickets after batting poorly, and the second by seven wickets after proving just as flaky at Melbourne.
And so to 2001-02, when New Zealand were last invited to Australia's big party and made a complete nuisance of themselves, eliminating the hosts on the back of three consecutive wins to make the finals against South Africa.
It was only the third time Australia had been eliminated from the final of their own tri-series, following the setback against the West Indies and England in 1979-80, and another against Pakistan and the West Indies in 1996-97.
That 2001/02 series will be remembered for the emergence of Shane Bond, the captaincy skills of Stephen Fleming and the hand of Chris Cairns, who stood in as skipper as New Zealand beat Australia at Sydney, and then struck a match-winning century against South Africa at Brisbane.
As usual, however, the euphoria was to last only as far as the finals; South Africa storming to a 2-nil win and their first taste of tri-series triumph.
But now there's another opportunity for New Zealand, and with the additional carrot of World Cup placings likely to make for intense competition within the squad, the challenge could hardly be tougher.
Their mission? To go where no other New Zealand team has gone before.
