“I think the record speaks for itself. They’ve definitely had the wood over us of late,” said New Zealand’s captain, Simon Mannering, this week “They’re a very consistent team. You regard them as the best guys around, it is going to be a great challenge for us.”

Australia starts as the favorite, but is acutely aware of the pattern concealed within that history of recent dominance. While New Zealand has won only three times (with one draw), those matches have been the important ones — the finals of multiteam tournaments in 2005 and 2010, and the last World Cup final in 2008.

“We don’t see it as a chance to make up for what happened in 2008, because nothing will ever make up for that,” said Cameron Smith, Australia’s captain and one of its five survivors from that devastating defeat. “The New Zealand boys won that and they’ll always be the champions. We just want to go out there and play the best we can.”

The final should showcase the teams’ fascinatingly contrasted styles. Australia plays a remorselessly power-based game. Since a penalty goal at the start of its group stage match with Fiji, it has not conceded a point, much less had its line crossed, in more than 300 minutes of rugby, while itself scoring 210 points and 38 tries.

New Zealand cannot match Australia for power, but compensates with an inventiveness typified by its star forward Sonny Bill Williams. Named International Rugby League Player of the Year this past week, Williams is bidding to complete a unique double by adding the league title to the Rugby Union World Cup winners medal he won with the All Blacks in 2011.

British fans will mostly cheer on New Zealand, the underdog in spite of also being the reigning champion.

But most of all, they will be expecting a final that maintains the high standards displayed throughout the tournament. England disappointed as host. It saved its best until last, losing heartbreakingly on the final play last week to New Zealand in a semifinal at London’s Wembley Stadium, which for quality and drama matched any contest in either rugby code this year.