It's prompted Greg Bird to label the Kangaroos preparations as "a shambles". The world champions were even on the receiving end of a cheeky sledge from Wellington's mayor.

A flu and stomach bug has swept through the team, with Daly Cherry-Evans, Cooper Cronk, David Klemmer, Beau Scott and Sione Mata'utia struggling with a virus. It was the same virus that has hit Greg Inglis, Sam Thaiday and coach Tim Sheens during the tournament.

To make matters worse, Fairfax Media has been told that Scott has been ruled out of the final with a hamstring injury. The Newcastle back-rower is expected to return home as soon as Thursday as he looks to minimise the spread of his illness.

The Kangaroos are yet to train in Wellington with a proposed session cancelled on Wednesday due to a lack of numbers. They hope to hit the training paddock on Thursday. Of most concern are Cherry-Evans and Cronk.

Team officials have taken extreme measures to ensure the virus does not spread by instructing staff at its hotel to sanitise everybody's room, change towels at least once a day and ensure the players' bed sheets are swapped daily.

"Everyone has different symptoms and everyone seems to be going down at the same time," Bird said. "It's hard to put our finger on it.

"They are quarantined. There's not much training we'd be able to do with the amount of personnel we have missing. We'll save our legs and hopefully those players can clear up a little bit by Thursday.

"Everything usually runs pretty fluently when it comes to pre-game prep for big games. You might have one player go down but not five or six. It's something different to deal with but the doctors, physio and the coaching staff are on top of it.

"It's been a bit of a shambles. We'll be right as soon as we get out there come Saturday night."

Privately, there were already concerns within the Kangaroos camp surrounding the side's limited preparations heading into the match.

Forced to play in Wollongong on Sunday, the Kangaroos didn't arrive in Wellington until after 10pm on Monday, with the Kiwis already settled in the New Zealand capital having played in Dunedin.

Bird said the Kangaroos had their backs to the wall.

"It's not ideal but this is a professional football team," he said. "Every one of these players have played in a big game before.

"I'm not nervous yet. The fact that we haven't been out on the field, everything that's happened we still have a few days to prepare. It'll still be clockwork as usual.

"It's been a long time since we've been going into games as underdogs. I don't know what the odds are, but we definitely are the underdogs.

"They've looked pretty sharp over the three games and embarrassed us in the first game. We've got a lot of work to do to make amends and a lot of improvement."

The Kangaroos were left further red-faced when they were 25 minutes late for a civil reception involving the Kiwis on Wednesday afternoon.

While their opponents sat patiently waiting for the Australian's to appear, the Kangaroos were taken to the wrong venue - twice - by their bus driver despite the park being about a five-minute walk from the team's hotel.

It prompted Wellington mayor Celia Wade-Brown to poke fun at the Kangaroos by saying to the 300-strong crowd: "I hope they aren't late for the game".

Bird was left bemused by the detour.

"We could've walked here in two minutes but apparently they wanted to take us on a tour of the city," Bird said. "They took us to two or three different places before we got to the right place."

The Kangaroos walked back to the rooms following the autograph session.