HANDSHAKES: Prime Minister John Key shakes hands with All Blacks captain Richie McCaw at the trophy presentation after the Rugby World Cup final win over France as International Rugby Board president Bernard Lapasset looks on.

It may have seemed like one of the worst weekends of Graham Henry's career. Our great leader did, after all, coach a team that had 60 points scored against it by Australia.

But on the same day he was being trounced at Twickers, Henry could also have been playing a bigger part in the election victory than John Key.

Some day a smart politics student with an interest in sport is going to do their thesis on the effect major sports events have on national elections.

I have done some preliminary research on this over the previous 24 hours and the results of the early polls suggest sporting victory is very good news for the sitting government.

In 1996, a year after Black Magic won the America's Cup and the Australian boat sank in the leadup, Jim Bolger was returned to power despite being unpopular among his own ministers.

NZ First also did well that year, another result that may not be altogether coincidental given the inherent jingoism of the party.

In 1999, soon after the All Blacks had been humiliated at the World Cup by France, New Zealand's government was kicked out of office by an angry electorate. I wonder whether the victory over the Lions in 2005 and Helen Clark's determination to be involved in the Rugby World Cup bid that year helped her cling to power.

The politicians certainly seem to think there is something in it. Four months before the 2005 election, Clark's government committed to bringing the World Cup back to New Zealand. All through the 2011 World Cup John Key kept turning up like a ubiquitous ballboy.

One of the images of this year's World Cup was the prime minister trying to beat IRB chairman Bernard Lapasset to the post-match Richie McCaw handshake.

But as they did for much of the night, France got to the breakdown first and Lapasset was able to secure possession while Key was left clutching at McCaw's fingers.

Key won't mind the shallow desperation of it all now. He got the result he wanted. Even on election night Key made sure he was filmed collecting the takeaway pizza like a bloke about to watch an evening of sport on the couch. He's one of us you see.

Please don't think of our shiny prime minister as a suited corporate who would rather spend his leisure time playing squash, the game for all non-sporting fitness fanatics.

There is plenty of other evidence to support Key's belief that the Rugby World Cup was a big part of his future as prime minister. Last year an American statistician looked at the effect that the results of the local college team had on voting in presidential, gubernatorial and senate elections.

Andrew Healy concluded that pigskin politics matters. After crunching numbers over 44 years, the results pointed to a 1.7 per cent spike in the incumbent's vote if the college team had won its game in the previous week.

The effect was necessarily short term because of the frequency of college football and the parochial nature of the vote. But if sport has such an effect locally, it is reasonable to think there may be a larger and longer correlation on a national scale.

John Howard's government ruled from 1996-2007, over a period when Australia staged the Olympics and a Rugby World Cup, won the latter event and was the world's leading cricket nation. It may just be coincidence, but I wouldn't give much for Julia Gillard's drooping popularity if the Black Caps stuff Australia at cricket over the next five days.

THE serious political commentators ascribe many of Gillard's problems to the carbon tax issue and her humiliation over the "boat people" vote. But she would probably be a lot more popular if Australia's sporting boom hadn't hit a recession.

The UK's then-prime minister Harold Wilson called an election in the year of the 1966 Football World Cup and his marginal government was returned with an increased majority. France had a long period of stable government in 1995-2007, the years of unprecedented success at football.

Manmohan Singh may be India's most popular ever prime minister during a period when the nation's cricket has never been more powerful. He sat with Pakistan's leader during India's World Cup triumph, an image that thrilled the country.

It is literally ludicrous, but sport seems to have a significant influence on the government of the day.

Maybe that is why Tony Blair was keen to play "head tennis" with Kevin Keegan and professed a childhood love of Newcastle United despite being unable to name any players from the 1960s.

I have no idea who Graham Henry voted for, but he may unintentionally have been Key's closest ally. A happy sporting electorate appears more likely to embrace the status quo.