Why rugby is even called football is beyond me last time I checked the scoring (apart from conversions and penalty kicks) in both League and Union involves carrying the ball across the line. At least with AFL to score involves kicking the ball between the goal posts.
I'm not too sure how the qualification stages actually work, but I do know that New Zealand like Australia before they left the Oceania Confederation for the Asian Confederation play a playoff in order to qualify because Oceania unlike the other confederations have no direct qualification into the finals. This caused heaps of criticism in Australia prior to the World Cup in Korea/Japan eight years ago where Australia once again fell short of qualifying because they were forced to play a playoff against Uruguay (we got our revenge 4 years later though) because prior to the playoff Australia was playing against teams which were far below whatever Australia's world ranking was at the time. In fact Australia to this day still holds the world record for most goals scored in a FIFA World Cup qualifying match (32-0 against American Samoa for those who are interested). This lack of competition is what many believe to be the reason for Australia's long absence from the finals.
Either way though New Zealand making the finals is a great achievement and I hope it does raise the sports profile in a rugby dominated country. Making the finals four years ago certainly raised the sport's profile here especially when the ratings came out saying that more people watched Australia lose to Germany than they watched the State of Origin rugby league match. Here's to FIFA selecting Australia to host either the 2018 or 2022 World Cup!
