Cricket, netball and now rugby as New Zealand and Australia, for the third time this year, will battle it out in a World Cup final.
With all due respect to the Black Caps and the Silver Ferns, this appears to be our best chance to redress the balance somewhat after the Aussies easily won the cricket and snuck home in the netball.
Many will be saying - "the Wallabies are the last team the All Blacks would want to play in the final" - but I disagree. Not a lot of research will be required after the two games played earlier this year in Sydney and Auckland. Sydney taught us that under Michael Cheika the 2015 Wallabies are a different beast to the inconsistent and flaky sides of the past, and Auckland taught us that Cheika was prepared to sacrifice a shot at lifting the Bledisloe Cup for the greater good - the Rugby World Cup.
Why else would he start two players at Eden Park, Nic White and James Horwill, who days later were left out of his 31-man Cup squad? And why, after it worked so brilliantly in game one, would he break up the Pocock-Hooper combination for the second match at Eden Park?
There is no fear of the unknown for either side in this match, that research will have been done months ago, and both teams can concentrate on just getting on with it. Both teams will be physically spent after the semifinals, which were two entirely different games, but this is hardly likely to be a World Cup final where neither side gets to 10 points.
