Even the financial whiz kids and men who crunch the numbers reckon the All Blacks will do the business this time around.
Dunedin-based company Forsyth Barr has got its team of researchers to predict who is going to win the Rugby World Cup.
The boffins at Forsyth Barr did not simply throw a dart at a board to pick a winner.
They did, as they described, what any research team would do and came up with an analytical model to help predict the result.
Does that mean throwing in the Pythagorean theorem of the length of the French oranges cut at halftime, multiplied by the square root of the Georgian GDP and then divided by the actual length of Dan Carter's jockstrap?
Not exactly. This is serious stuff.
The team at Forsyth Barr used the IRB rankings; the past 30 years of results from international games; past World Cup performance; odds offered by the TAB, and a survey of Forsyth Barr investment advisers.
In all but one of those five categories, the All Blacks come out on top.
Surprise, surprise, the only category in which the All Blacks do not emerge as the top dog is when the calculation is done on past World Cups.
In that department, South Africa comes out on top as it has won half the tournaments it has entered. It did not attend the first two tournaments.
The All Blacks are down at third place with just 20%. Australia is just ahead at 23%.
Ominously, for home supporters, the summary on this point reveals form and history outside of the World Cup count for very little.
But before you start getting out the hankies and taking up tiddlywinks, the research then concludes, across all five categories, the All Blacks will be the victors come October 23.
Not all of the five gradings are weighted equally - the research favours predictive models over historic models, helping the All Blacks no end.
Its final conclusion is - putting aside the disastrous performance of the All Blacks in past World Cups - that the side is clearly the one to beat.
As it points out, New Zealand is the host country, it has form on its side and captain Richie McCaw has a 96%-winning record in home test matches.
