In a game in which New Zealand kicked a mere 44 per cent of their shots at goal, while Australia nailed all theirs, it seems odd to suggest that the All Blacks overwhelmingly won the kicking battle.
However, from the opening whistle, the Wallabies were found wanting with the boot in terms of both tactics and execution, and it proved decisive.
It started with the very first play of the game when Quade Cooper, who had seemingly been happy to play the role of New Zealand's bete noire for the duration of the tournament, betrayed his nerves by booting the kick off straight in to touch.
While the error was hardly fatal, with approximately 79 minutes and 40 seconds left to atone for it, it did mean the host nation started with a significant psychological advantage.
To borrow an idea from another sport, it was a little like the fabled importance of the opening delivery of an Ashes cricket series. It should have little bearing on the outcome of the series, but it can have an effect nonetheless.
This was Cooper's equivalent of missing the cut strip and bowling the first ball straight into the hands of Andrew Flintoff at second slip, as Steve Harmison managed in 2006.
The New Zealand-born fly-half found his range with the restarts, in the sense that he managed to keep them infield from thereon in, but his target was a poor one.
Almost every high kick by Australia, whether from a restart or an up and under, was hit down Cory Jane's throat on the New Zealand right wing.
Jane should not necessarily be so good under the high ball. He is one of the many successful products of the New Zealand sevens programme.
The amount of high balls he would have had to mark in the course of an entire season in sevens would be approximately nil. As Gordon Tietjens, the celebrated New Zealand sevens coach who was a key figure in the rise of a number of players in this All Black squad, says, "kicking is for karate".
Tietjens is probably singularly unimpressed by the fact this Rugby World Cup looks set to be decided by the boot.
Only two tries were scored over the course of the two semi-finals this weekend, and one of them was for a defeated Wales side who only had 14 players on the field at the time.
Do not bank on the trend being altered in the final. A grand total of five tries have been scored over the course of the past five World Cup finals.
If there is any optimism to be had for those who prefer tries to kicks ahead of Sunday's final, it is in the form of another Tietjens protege, Israel Dagg.
When Dagg made his first trip with a senior international team, to the 2007 Dubai Rugby Sevens, Tietjens said he was going to be the next taxi off a rank that already counted the likes of Jonah Lomu, Joe Rokocoko and Christian Cullen.
Only Cooper managed a better tally of defenders beaten than the four Dagg outfoxed yesterday, and his assist for Ma'a Nonu's try was a triumph for enterprise.
