England against Australia was a mismatch first time round and could well be again next Saturday, provided that Tony Smith’s embattled team reach the World Cup final at New Zealand’s expense this morning. As for Fiji in tomorrow’s second semi-final against Australia, there is talk of a cricket score.

The opprobrium in the press for Ricky Ponting, the Australia cricket captain, after the Test series defeat by India has been in marked contrast to the continuing love affair with Darren Lockyer, his rugby league counterpart. There is little danger of Fiji – think Andorra against Brazil in football – rattling Lockyer’s Kangaroos, who could go through the tournament without a reasonably competitive match to disturb collecting a seventh consecutive world title, without an upset of seismic proportions.

That seems beyond a team who prepared on an island with no electricity and bonded by ripping the heads off fish and eating them, but interest in rugby league in Fiji is at fever pitch. Satellite dishes in the country are sold out and the traditional preference for rugby union, especially the sevens version, is being seriously challenged by the league team and the sport of rakavi saumi, which has 500 active players after throwing off the yoke of union with its emergence in 1992.

An 80-strong Fijian enclave in Lancashire, based around those union converts who responded to an advertisement in the Fiji Times by Rochdale Hornets in 1961 and received life bans from the Fiji Rugby Union, will be cheering the “Batis” on from 11,000 miles away. So will everyone with an uncynical heart who has enjoyed the tournament within a tournament portrayed by Australian commentators as the Kangaroos’ coronation, missing the essential point of a World Cup.

While the Australia juggernaut steamrollered England, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea in the so-called super-pool, the also-rans have not only provided some of the best stories over the past three weeks but broadened the sport’s international appeal. Fiji were an unknown quantity who surprisingly blitzed a much-fancied France in their opening match. Scotland then beat Fiji, who went on to end Ireland’s odyssey in the semi-final qualifier.

Australia may be unbackable favourites and the credibility of the competition’s skewed structure undermined by England losing two matches and still qualifying for the semi-finals. But many of the minnows have advanced their causes in the tournament and crowds and commercial revenues have exceeded expectations to the extent that Australia may challenge England’s application to stage the next World Cup in 2013.

Fiji are not to be underestimated, with players of the calibre of Akuila Uate, of Newcastle Knights, whom the great Andrew Johns picked out as the most athletically gifted wing in the NRL, and Semi Tadulala, of Bradford Bulls, on the other flank. “They won’t know too much about us,” Wes Naiqa-ma, the flamboyant Fiji captain, said. “We’ll play with some structure early, but the time will come when we’ll throw it around. That’s something we can use to our advantage. We’ve got a game plan to beat the Australians.”

Australia do know all about Jarryd Hayne, a former Kangaroo who is enjoying life at full back for Fiji. The Parramatta Eels player was in the headlines in March for being shot at near a Sydney nightclub. He then lost his place in the New South Wales team in the State of Origin series after a suspension. The 20-year-old rediscovered his passion playing alongside some of Fiji’s village players.

“It has brought the fun back into my football,” Hayne said. “We did some bonding back in Fiji before the tournament when we had to go fishing, then rip the fish’s heads off and eat them. We went to an island where there was no electricity or TV. The kids went to school in huts. But it brought us all together. We play like we’re family. We don’t go out there with any pressure. We go out there to have fun.”