World Cup confidence rising before losses - survey

New Zealanders were increasingly looking forward to an All Black win at the Rugby World Cup, at least up until Saturday's loss to the Wallabies. Photo / Getty Images

New Zealanders were increasingly looking forward to the Rugby World Cup - and the All Blacks winning it for the first time in 24 years - at least up until Saturday's loss to the Wallabies, according to surveys released today.

The online and telephone surveys, conducted by research company UMR, found 41 per cent were looking forward to the cup, up 6 per cent since July, and 61 per cent thought it would be good for the economy, up 10 per cent.

Thirty-five per cent, down 6 per cent, now thought it would be disruptive for many of us.

New Zealanders were also backing the All Blacks to win.

Eighty-two per cent of fans were at least quietly confident that the All Blacks would win the tournament, 28 per cent very confident, and 54 per cent were fairly confident.

Seventy-eight per cent believed the All Blacks were as well-prepared as they could be.

However, the surveys were carried out before the All Blacks lost to both the Springboks and Wallabies in away matches in the Tri-Nations competition - most recently the Wallabies beat the All Blacks 25-20 in Brisbane on Saturday night.

Before the losses 48 per cent thought that the biggest threat to an All Black victory would come from Australia, while 28 per cent expected it to come from South Africa.

UMR research director Gavin White admitted, that while it was impossible to put a value on how much the percentages might have changed, the confidence figures would have been knocked back by the losses.

However, the opinions on the tournament's success would be absolutely unchanged, perhaps even putting an edge on New Zealanders' perception of it.

"Now there will be that nice sort of frisson of 'hang on, we could lose this thing'."

Mr White also believed people still would think the All Blacks were as prepared as they could be.

"What I like about the preparation question is it cancels out a lot of those luck factors, which clearly worked against us last time [in previous World Cups].

"At least we are saying 'we have done what we can'."

The survey found 62 per cent thought that the New Zealand Rugby Union was right to keep Graham Henry as coach after the 2007 RWC, compared with only 10 per cent who think that they made the wrong decision.

Mr White said that figure may have also come down a bit.

UMR will conduct one more phone survey this weekend where they might redo the confidence survey and biggest rival to see what might have changed, he said.

The confidence and biggest rival questions were from telephone survey of 750 people, with a margin of error of 3.6 per cent.

The other questions were from an online survey of 1000 people, with a margin of error of 3.1 per cent.

- NZPA