The Bledisloe has become light entertainment, a ruck and run giggle to serve as an antidote to the heavyweight fest which is the Six Nations.
The last game between these two in Perth produced wildly different stats to anything else seen last year, with a record number of running metres from both teams in the All Blacks 38-21 victory.
It was a game which confirmed that the Bledisloe has almost become like a chemistry experiment, seeing how two previously stable compounds can react with such volatility when they are combined.
The catalyst to spark this reaction is the mindset they both bring of wanting to play fast and wide and take risks.
Both teams want an aerobic contest decided on their ability to pass and catch, and inevitably, by taking more risks, mistakes are made and defences are forced to scramble from broken play and the contest becomes end-to-end.
These two nations are the last great entertainers but amusing the masses with running fare is something no other international teams want to do anymore.
The other major contenders have baulked at the risk profile that comes with trying to break the edge of a defence rather than blast through the middle.
The likes of Ireland, France, England and South Africa don't want to be in possession inside their own territory and they all want to play at a controlled pace where they patiently squeeze their opposition into submission and only take measured risks.
The effectiveness of this lower-risk approach has been to install Ireland, France and South Africa as numbers one, two and three in the world rankings, with England not so far behind in fifth.
With a year to go until the World Cup kicks off, these four nations – particularly Ireland and France – are widely considered to be the favourites to succeed, with few believing that either New Zealand or Australia will be able to mount an effective campaign if they persevere with higher-risk, running rugby.
But a year is a long time in international rugby, and in previous World Cup cycles styles that were dominant for the first three years were suddenly rendered obsolete, or dated and less effective, in the home straight.
We have also seen how World Cups can dance to a different beat and produce unlikely finalists such as England in 2007, France in 2011 and to some extent, South Africa in 2019.
The Boks a year out from the 2019 tournament did not look like world champions, but in the final 12 months before the tournament they rebuilt their game around their lineout mauling and box kicking and came away from Japan as champions.
There is a good chance, then, that these next two Bledisloe Cup clashes will prove not to be the outlier – a nostalgic throwback to a forgotten age of running rugby – but in fact two major signposts of what sort of rugby will succeed in France next year.
The game has always been cyclical and while neither New Zealand nor Australia have been particularly impressive or consistent since 2019, their timing may prove bang on and what we might be looking at in Melbourne is the two teams who are going to make the 2023 World Cup final.
This really isn't as far-fetched as it sounds. South Africa have looked jaded and stale at times this year. Ireland are notorious for playing their best rugby a year early and France could implode under the pressure of being hosts.
More importantly, though, the game has been gripped by stagnant box-kicking and rush defences for too long now and in these next 12 months, it's possible that both New Zealand and Australia – the two most skilled and inventive teams on the planet – will finally find the way to consistently play through and around these problems and ignite a new era where ball-in-hand, risk-taking rugby succeeds more than it fails.
