Boffin predicts nervy All Blacks 4-point win for Rugby World Cup

The All Blacks will bring home the Rugby World Cup - but only after an excruciating four-point win over England, according to a maths equation.

Maths boffin Stefan Yelas successfully predicted the outcome of the 2003 and 2011 Rugby World Cups and is now unveiling his latest forecast, using the same formula devised for a masters degree 12 years ago.

Yelas has the boys in black way out in front. He gives New Zealand a 39 per cent chance of lifting the World Cup in London on November1 and becoming the first team to successfully defend the trophy.

But the maths also shows tournament hosts and arch-rivals England have a 23 per cent chance of glory.

They have home advantage - and memories of smashing the All Blacks 38-21 at Twickenham in 2012.

"New Zealand have the greatest chance of winning the World Cup at 39 per cent," Yelas said from Melbourne.

"They have a 77 per cent chance of making the semifinals and 55 per cent chance of the final. The most likely final pairing is England and New Zealand. The model predicts New Zealand to win by four points."

The secret to the "pretty simple" system involves collating five years of scores for all 20 World Cup teams. Yelas applies calculations for home advantage and official World Rugby rankings.

The technique was eerily accurate in 2003 when Yelas said England would win and predicted the fulltime margin in the final would be 0.5 points.

At fulltime England and Australia were locked 17-17 and the English won in extra time.

Things didn't go according to plan in 2007, though, when the system picked the All Blacks, who ended up in a shock defeat to France in the quarter-final.

The All Blacks were correctly picked in 2011 but only beat France 8-7 in the final, compared to a predicted win by 25 points.