Northern hemisphere fans look away now.
It may be rugby heresy to admit it, but deep down, most neutrals would have opted for a clash between New Zealand and South Africa to provide the denouement to the 2015 Rugby World Cup.
The draw will not permit it should they both, as expected, win their pools and make it through their quarter-finals to meet in the last four.
But recent evidence suggests, had they been kept apart until the final, it would be our best chance of not being bored to tears.
World Cup finals have not often provided much bang for the buck when it comes to entertainment.
1987 was a thoroughly one-sided affair, as the New Zealanders swept France aside.
1991 was tight and tense but low on quality, as England tried to outrun Australia and failed. One try was scored, a short-range effort by Wallaby prop Tony Daley.
In 1995, South Africa strangled the influence of Jonah Lomu and a tryless game was pinched in extra time via Joel Stransky’s boot.
And in 1999, the Australians ruled the roost for the second time with a clinical dismantling of France, who were a spent force, having played their final a week earlier with that astonishing comeback against the All Blacks.
2003 had its last-minute drama and exploded once or twice when England found room to run, but both teams otherwise struggled to break free from the fear of defeat.
Ditto four years later; no tries were scored and there was only one real moment of theatre, when the TMO dithered over whether Mark Cueto’s toenail had scraped the touchline paint.
2011 at least produced two tries, but that was it—an 8-7 win for the All Blacks, who just about held their nerve to take the contest against France.
World Cup finals can understandably do this to the best teams.
It takes years of planning, weeks of pre-tournament training and a heavy programme of pool play and knockouts to reach the point they have been dreaming of; defeat after all the blood, sweat and tears shed to get to the final is too unthinkable a prospect to take any risks, and the match is usually dire as a result.
In recent years, however, we have seen that sides can provide value for money when silverware is on the line.
This year’s Six Nations was the perfect example of that, with last-day drama everywhere you looked as sides scrambled for the points they needed to finish on top of the pile.
Those circumstances cannot be replicated in the cauldron of a one-off, winner-takes-all World Cup final, though.
It is a tough task to fathom how we can guarantee a barn burner of a World Cup final, but our best chance may have been if the two sides taking the field were New Zealand and South Africa.
Exhibit A
The recent contest between the sides in Johannesburg would frankly trump any of the seven World Cup finals in the books. We saw a Bok outfit ready to run—if faltering slightly in much of their execution of that plan—rabid back-rowers piling into tackles, outside backs attacking space and players ready to back themselves on the counter-attack.
And neither side could be said to have been at its best, with just one game under their belts and a raft of injuries in South Africa’s case.
Exhibit B
Go back another year and we saw an even better version of this contest. The youthful Handre Pollard twice sliced through New Zealand as though he was playing a schoolboy match.
The Boks looked for all the world like they had won it until Dane Coles' 69th-minute try gave New Zealand a one-point lead. But they came back again with a howitzer of a last-minute penalty from Pat Lambie to steal the match. It was a modern classic.
Exhibit C
2013 was the year New Zealand went unbeaten, and a thrilling game between them and the Springboks in Johannesburg decided the destination of that year’s Rugby Championship. A rip-roaring opening saw each side swap kitchen sinks in a breathless, bare-knuckle scrap.
The lead changed hands four times in the first half alone. Beauden Barrett’s 60th-minute try saw the All Blacks eventually land the telling blow. The sides shared nine tries in that game, five more than the last three World Cup finals put together.
There have been less than a handful of Tests over that three-year period that could hold a candle to the quality and entertainment provided by those three clashes between the world’s two best sides.
Ireland’s near miss against the Blacks in 2013 probably tops the list.
Even if New Zealand and South Africa do meet on 31 October, the risk remains that the size of the prize will change their mindsets, but they have provided the strongest possible evidence to date they could buck the World Cup final trend.
Whether you support them or not, you have to begrudgingly admit a clash along the lines of their last three meetings in South Africa would have been the best advert for the sport.
Read more New Zealand Rugby news on BleacherReport.com