By Jim Webster

At least we’re not going to follow the same path as another old rugby type, who used to be our prime minister until a few days ago.

No, the Wallabies are heading upwards and onwards, with the World Cup only days away now and the chance for us to become the first nation ever to win the tournament on three occasions (New Zealand and South Africa have also won the Webb Ellis Trophy twice).

But to do so, we have many hurdles (or opponents) to overcome.

This writer was most fortunate to attend the Wallabies unpublicized training session at Little Manly shortly before they flew out to Chicago and Indiana en route to England and to watch them along with a limited media attendance.

During those few hours I had a private conversation with Michael Cheika, whom I’ve known personally for many years, and we discussed the task ahead.

He made the strong point that he was only approaching the World Cup “one game at a time” which means their biggest hurdle comes on September 23 in Cardiff when they play Fiji. They are the biggest danger to our chances, he said, for the Fijians are so unpredictable that they can beat anyone, anytime.

The impression given me by Cheika was that he will be putting close to his number one lineup in against them and stirring them into giving it everything. With the Fijians hopefully out of the way, he can then give the second-stringers a run against Uruguay in Birmingham four days later.

Only after that will the Wallabies face the two predictable nations in their pool, England and Wales, and with those matches a week apart he will be able to field his number one team against both of them. I should add that Wales were dealt a hammer blow with fullback Leigh Halfpenny being ruled out of the World Cup with injury.

After that, and presuming we have won our pool or at least been runner-up, the World Cup reaches its serious end with the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final.

It’s no secret that the red-hot favourites to win the World Cup are New Zealand, which was underlined by the manner of that last victory against the Wallabies in Auckland.

You must give credit where credit’s due and on that day they would have beaten any other rugby nation on Earth in that same comprehensive, methodical manner.

The question is: can the Wallabies overcome the All Blacks, and everyone else, and become the only nation to win the World Cup three times, having done so in 1991 in London and 1999 in Cardiff?

Yes, they can. But I need to make a few points if this is to become a reality.

We certainly have the three-quarter line to do the job, with quality players like Israel Folau, Adam Ashley-Cooper, Kurtley Beale and Tevita Kuridrani (who has talent in his bloodlines, being a cousin of former Wallabies winger Lote Tuqiri) able to ignite tries like almost no other World Cup backline.

We also have some of the world’s best backrowers in Michael Hooper and David Pocock, but what we need more than anything else is a front-five performance to enable those behind them to do the jobs they are capable of. Our scrummaging has definitely improved under the watchful eye of Argentina’s Mario Ledesma, who has been an integral part of Los Pumas’ World Cup campaigns in the past.

So it’s a matter of whether our forwards can match this with equal dominance elsewhere.

Hopefully, if they can then Australia’s outcome might well come down to our goalkicker/s on the day, whether that is Bernard Foley, Matt Giteau, Quade Cooper or Kurtley Beale and I cannot stress the importance that kickers have on big matches.

If you have someone who can log up a 80/85% success rate with his kicking, then his team will almost certainly cross the finishing line in first place.

If you need an example of how important goalkicking and drop-kicking is at the highest level then think no further than England’s Jonny Wilkinson. During his career, England won 67 of the 91 matches he played for them, he kicked a record 29 Test drop goals and he holds the Rugby World Cup points-scoring record with 277 points.

So, in answer to the vexing question of whether we will win the World Cup, we certainly have the quality players to do so. But we need the tight-five forwards to perform and someone to keep repeatedly putting over those goals.

And they won’t get any louder support than will be provided by this writer, who will be up there in the Twickenham grandstands for their last pool match against Wales and then through the quarter-finals and semi-finals.