We are in ascendancy, All Blacks hanging on

I’ll be honest. There isn’t much about rugby that attracts me and I don’t follow the sport as closely as hockey or cricket. It’s a game about strength and brawn. About power. I prefer one that is more about skill and speed, hockey for instance. I prefer Australian Football to rugby.

But that does not mean I won’t watch the World Cup final against the All Blacks tonight. The match will start around midnight here and I’ll stay up and watch it, like every other Australian, for the simple reason that it’s against the All Blacks and also the fact that this is the biggest-ever rugby match involving Australia and New Zealand. The two countries have played each other several times in the past, but never have the stakes but so high.

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Generally, Australia and New Zealand do not meet in semifinal or final of major sporting events very often. I have coached Australian hockey team in around 25 different semifinals or finals of tournaments such as the World Cup, Olympics or Champions Trophy but we never faced the Black Sticks in those matches.

However, the two countries have met each other twice in the final of sporting events this year. First, it was in cricket World Cup final. That was played within Australia and was in the summer so there was pretty good hype around it but it’s not much compared to rugby because of what’s at stake. We beat them at cricket easily and then again the two countries met in the netball world championship final in August. We emerged winners there as well. It’ll be great if we can complete a hat-trick of final wins over our neighbours.

It won’t be easy but I believe the Wallabies have the edge. The All Blacks have a lot of older players on their team while the Australian team is a bit fresher and newer.

Rugby is perhaps the only sport where they hold an upper hand over Australia. There’s a reason for that too. Here in Australia, we have more football codes than any other country in the world. We have the Rugby League, Rugby Union, Australian Rules Football – which is the biggest – and soccer. So the talent is diluted here. If all those players were playing rugby, then we would easily beat the All Blacks.

Another factor that we need to take into account is that the support for the sport is region specific. For instance, where I come from in Western Australia, Australian Rules Football is easily the most popular game. But over in the East, Sydney and Brisbane, rugby is a big deal.

So the people in those region are psyched up for the match. But even in other parts of the country, there’s a lot of anticipation because, as I said, this is the biggest-ever rugby match between the two countries.

While we have too many football codes in Australia, in New Zealand rugby is the biggest sport. They play a bit of soccer but rugby is the biggest thing. And that’s why they are better than us. But I don’t think it’ll last forever and on this occasion, our team is grinding out and is on the ascendancy while New Zealand are hanging on. That’s not a good formula. Maybe they’ve been at the top for long and hence are just holding on while our team is growing and developing.

They’ll feel terrible in New Zealand if they don’t win. I was there in 2007 as their cricket association’s high performance manager and when they lost to France in the quarterfinal, they entire place was like a morgue. I’ll be glad if they have some more bad moments and are beaten once again.

Charlesworth is former coach of the Australian hockey team and high performance director of New Zealand cricket. He spoke to Mihir Vasavda