All Black Cory Jane has given suffering Australian fans some hope by saying Kiwi dominance in Super Rugby won't necessarily translate to the Bledisloe Cup.
Australian teams have only won three of 24 games against New Zealand this year and on the back of a series whitewash loss to England in June, it hardly instills confidence about the Wallabies' chances of beating the world champion All Blacks in August once, let alone twice to win back the Bledisloe Cup for the first time since 2002.
But Jane, who played 53 Tests for New Zealand and was a member of the 2011 World Cup winning side, said Australians shouldn't get too discouraged because Test rugby is a whole new ballgame.
"It doesn't mean anything when it comes to Test match rugby. Just at the moment it is going New Zealand's way," Jane said after the Hurricanes' win.
"Different team, different ball-game. Whether a South African team, an Aussie team or a New Zealand team are dominating or playing poorly, once they put that Test jersey on it's completely different. I am not in that at the moment, so I don't have to worry about that.
"I know we want to win it as the Hurricanes. But when you move on from Super Rugby to Test match, it's completely different. The Wallabies will be their usual Wallabies, and so will the other teams."
Hurricanes coach Chris Boyd said the figures around New Zealand's dominance over Australia was "a bit lopsided" and credited it to a strong playing group.
"The New Zealand conference is heathy at the moment," he said.
"All five teams have got good rosters and so we have a good mixture of experienced and growing players, and also we have been able to inject a lot of youth into those franchises. They are all good balanced sides, in my view."
Boyd added that regular season form wouldn't necessarily translate into the finals, either, and on home turf the likely Aussie conference winners the Brumbeis would still be formidable.
"It still holds that any team can prevail on the day," Boyd said.