Bob Marley’s Jamming blasted out from the sound system in New Zealand’s dressing-room. The players sat in a circle, the World Cup trophy placed in the middle, drinking in the moment. There were smiles, the odd nudge and joke, but a sense of wonderment after the game’s order had been turned on its head by the Kiwis’ victory over Australia, world champions since 1975, in an extraordinary final.

“They’ve some special players, let’s be honest. But when you’ve 17 guys all putting in, somehow you can move mountains,” Thomas Leuluai, the Wigan Warriors scrum half, who was reinvented as a hooker during the tournament, said. A team portrayed as whipping boys after their 30-6 loss to Australia in the opening pool match, when sections of the Australian media declared the tournament to be a one-horse race and a waste of time, used their two defeats of England to hone an irrepressible will that mercifully ended the World Cup monopoly of Australia after six victories in a row.

Unlike their rugby union rivals, New Zealand were unencumbered by expectations. But the Kiwis managed what the All Blacks have systematically failed to do since their solitary success in 1987 and won a World Cup, the possibility of which would have been laughed at a month ago.

Australia’s property for more years than has been healthy for the international game was whipped from under their nose by sheer force of character and a game plan by Stephen Kearney, the coach, and Wayne Bennett, the Australian coaching legend and now honorary Kiwi, designed to expose whether the Kangaroos had the necessary clout to go with their class.

Harry and hound Australia for ten minutes, as England did, and they make the odd mistake. Repeat that over 80 minutes and they are as vulnerable as any side. A big black wall enveloped them at every turn and all the pre-tournament perceptions that Australia might not have the greatest pack, for all the athletic talents at their disposal in the back line, were vindicated under the pressure mounted by the Kiwis, who had not beaten Australia in 13 previous World Cup meetings.

New Zealand have transformed themselves under Kearney from a side whitewashed 3-0 by Great Britain in last year’s series. With the exception of Leuluai, who admitted that the transition from the more open Super League style was a difficulty at first, the team are forged in the same NRL mould as an Australia side, who did not deliver when it really mattered.

Saturday’s final had been regarded as little more than a formality, but Australia were disrupted by injuries. Their attacking rhythm faltered and rushes of blood to the head — such as befell Billy Slater, the Australia full back, who was named afterwards as player of the tournament, who flung a pass infield in desperation only to see Benji Marshall pick up for the try that put New Zealand in control at 22-16 — were a direct consequence of the Kiwis’ sheer relentlessness.

Lance Hohaia was correctly awarded a penalty try in the 70th minute, after Joel Monaghan tugged at the full back as he pursued a kick by Nathan Fien into the Australia in-goal, and Adam Blair, the barnstrorming prop, deservedly added a sixth late on.

Darren Lockyer, the Australia captain, who missed out on a third try by his fingertips that could have put his side 16-0 ahead, and possibly out of sight in the first quarter, seemed embarrassed to collect the man-of-the-match award — a desperate attempt, it seemed, to cling on to a misconceived notion of Australian superiority.

It was New Zealand’s day, as Ricky Stuart, the Australia coach, said, reinforcing his opinion that the Kangaroos need be off their game only slightly and they can be caught. Revenge, though, is likely to add momentum to an Australian challenge to England to host the next World Cup in 2013, after which the tournament will move to a four-year cycle. The sometimes derided international game, in the light of New Zealand’s triumph and their Tri-Nations success in 2005, really does have a fresh and exciting feel, assisted in no small part by the efforts in the tournament of Fiji and Ireland.It is now England and France’s responsibility to rise to the challenge presented by the 2009 Four Nations competition in the northern hemisphere.

Scorers: Australia: Tries: Lockyer 2, Williams, Inglis. Goals: Thurston 2. New Zealand: Tries: Smith, Ropati, Hohaia 2, Marshall, Blair. Goals: Luke 3, Marshall 2.

Australia: B Slater; J Monaghan, G Inglis, I Folau, D Williams; D Lockyer, J Thurston; B Kite, C Smith, P Civoniceva, A Laffranchi, G Stewart, P Gallen. Interchange: K Hunt, A Tupou, C Fitzgibbon, A Watmough.

New Zealand: L Hohaia; S Perrett, S Mannering, J Ropati, M Vatuvei; B Marshall, N Fien; N Cayless, T Leuluai, A Blair, D Fa'alogo, B Harrison, J Smith. Interchange: I Luke, G Eastwood, S Rapira, S Manu.

Referee: A Klein (England).