The world No.1 Kookaburras suffered their first defeat of the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup men's hockey campaign on Saturday, losing 4-2 to India in their fifth and final round-robin match.
The Australians had already qualified for Sunday's final (10.40pm AEST) against New Zealand in the six-nation tournament.
Captain Mark Knowles would have hoped for a positive result in his 250th appearance for Australia.
Having fallen two goals down in the third quarter, Matt Gohdes gave Australia hope of a comeback seven minutes from time but Nikkin Thimmaiah's third goal for India in the final minute put the result beyond doubt.
Kookaburras coach Graham Reid said it was not a good performance after a poor first half in particular.
"We tried to treat it like a semi-final but they can be difficult games when there's nothing riding on it and you're already in the final.
"We talked before the match about holding the ball, keeping possession, but we just didn't do that. We turned the ball over too many times.
"Once you let a team like India into the game, it's difficult to change the flow of it. I thought that in the second half, we came back reasonably ok but there were too many easy goals. We're not happy with our penalty-corner attack. We'll get out in the morning a do some more work on that."
New Zealand qualified for the final against Australia despite a 3-3 draw with Korea, advancing through their higher placing (2nd) in the group standings at the completion of the round-robin phase.
SULTAN AZLAN SHAH CUP STANDINGS (AFTER POOL GAMES):
* 1. Australia
* 2. New Zealand
* 3. India
* 4. Korea
* 5. Malaysia
* 6. Canada
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