In a sport that was once the domain of private schoolboys and beer-drinking university students, the Wallabies are changing people's perceptions with their unlikely band of misfits.
"We have a team of real diversity. People who have come from all different lands and origins, as well as very different characters," Australia coach Michael Cheika said.
"I won’t say we’ve got the extreme right, but we’ve got the extreme left and centre right in the way we think.
"And we’ve got the jokers, the lovers and the fighters."
No one personifies the eclectic make-up of the Wallabies more than Cheika himself. The son of a Lebanese migrant, Cheika worked for years in the women's fashion industry, running a multimillion-dollar business.
He speaks several languages, including Arabic, French and Italian, and has coached all over the world.
Given the job of coaching the Wallabies only a year out from the World Cup, Cheika has done an amazing job transforming the team, as players on the pitch and as people off it, helping them to reach Saturday's final against New Zealand.
Australia captain Stephen Moore said that one of Cheika's greatest attributes is the way he encourages all his players to be themselves and for everyone to embrace the different personalities rather than conform to one type.
"He’s very good at that. He certainly allows different characters to express themselves," Moore said.
"We don’t have any rules around the place. We’ve just got common sense and everyone doing their job really well and respecting each other."
WALLABIES MELTING POT
Australia has always been a melting-pot society, and that is reflected in the current Wallabies squad. Scrumhalf Will Genia was born in Papua New Guinea, outside centre Tevita Kuridrani was born in Fiji and number eight David Pocock hails from Zimbabwe.
Some come from rich families, others from poor. Some are black, some white. Some are whiz-kids who broke into the team at a young age, others are veterans and some are late bloomers.
Australia's towering back-row forward Scott Fardy did not make his test debut until he was 29 and spent several seasons playing club rugby in Japan before his elevation to the Wallabies side.
He was in the city of Kamaishi when it was levelled by a devastating quake and tsunami in March 2011. He rejected the offer to be evacuated so he could help with the recovery effort, then dedicated himself to never wasting another minute of his life.
However, the poster boy for Australia's diverse approach to life and rugby is undoubtedly Pocock. A fierce competitor on the pitch, Pocock runs a charitable foundation that works on aiding self-sufficiency in poverty stricken areas of Zimbabwe.
He is also an advocate for a variety of causes, from same-sex marriage to the environment, and in 2014 he and his wife were arrested by Australian police after chaining themselves to a digging machine in protest at plans to open coal mine in a national forest.
Earlier this year he reported an opposing player for using a homophobic slur, saying that homophobia was akin to racism and unacceptable in sport.
"David is a really interesting character. It’s been very good for me because I’ve got to know him a bit better," Cheika said.
"Away from the game he’s very interesting to talk to, his thoughts and evolution as a person and player.
"One of the big things for us as well, is growing up off the field, maturing. I really like to have lots of different characters in teams, people who think differently about everything."
(Editing by David Goodman)
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