AUSTRALIA were the first team to win the Rugby World Cup twice, and they will be the first to win it three times should they emerge victorious today. But despite their pre-eminence in rugby union over recent decades, they still have to fight for recognition back home, where other sports such as rugby league and Aussie Rules have long held sway.

A poor run of form over the last few years did not help matters, but Michael Cheika has transformed the picture since becoming head coach last year. And Cheika has done more than just improve the results: he has also got the team playing an appealing, adventurous style of rugby.

The All Blacks - who can today also become the first country to win the trophy for a third time - have progressed to this afternoon’s final with something akin to serenity. The Wallabies, by contrast, have enjoyed more of a rollercoaster ride, one that has produced euphoria in their traditional supporters back home, and also attracted a new generation of fans.

Cheika has been duly gratified by the backing he and his squad have received, but yesterday he insisted that, rather than being content with what they had achieved so far, he and the players would use it to spur themselves on to greater things. Nothing been greater, of course, than victory in today’s final.

“When you feel that support you’ve got to make sure you use it to push on from being comfortable,” he said. “We want to go on and do something great. You don’t want to be comfortable.

“We’ve got our supporters in Australia enjoying the game again, and that’s not marketing. I’m not from the marketing department. It’s good for them to feel that they’re attached to the team. We want to give them more to be proud of tomorrow.”

While stand-off Bernard Foley has kicked some vital points and captain and hooker Stephen Moore has led from the front, Wallabies supporters have above all been proud of their back row in this tournament. David Pocock, Michael Hooper and the unsung Scott Fardy have been immense, despite being a relatively new combination.

“I still think there’s room for them to get better,” Cheika said of the trio. “They haven’t played that much together and they can still improve.”

Pocock missed out on the quarter-final against Scotland because of injury, and his absence was sorely felt. Restored to the ranks against Argentina, he won valuable turnover ball time after time to deny the Pumas the points that seemed sure to come from the amount of possession they had.

What Pocock does is simple, at least to state in words. He gets to the breakdown fast, then uses immense upper-body strength to rip the ball clean away from an opponent. But ‘simple’ is not the same as easy: if it were, everyone would be doing the same thing.

Pocock’s marriage of strength and sleight of hand sums up Cheika’s approach. A former back-row player himself, the coach knows his team will have to be equal to New Zealand’s physical challenge, but believes that the key to victory will be maintaining a high degree of technical expertise at the same time.

“I’ve got a lot of belief in the team,” he added. “We know it’s going to be extremely physical, and we’ve prepared accordingly.

“[Physicality] is pretty much their modus operandi,” he said of New Zealand. “They’ve got great leg drive and I love that style of play. We want to bring physicality to the game too. It’s also how you bring it technically, and why you are doing it. It will be an interesting part of the game.”

A recurring theme this week has been how much the Australians, always iconoclastic by instinct, should respect the All Blacks. New Zealand captain Richie McCaw and stand-off Dan Carter are set to retire after the final, but Wallabies winger Drew Mitchell made it plain that he and his team-mates were not about to sit back and allow those two legends to have a fairytale ending to their illustrious careers.

“They’ve achieved a lot, not just for New Zealand.” Mitchell said. “We will give them due respect, but at the same time we want to go out there and perform. We’ll congratulate them afterwards, but there won’t be any of that before the game.”