Australian captain Cameron Smith accused New Zealand of disrespecting international rugby league after the Kiwis arrived 40 minutes late to the launch of the World Cup advertising campaign.

Representatives of both sides were supposed to appear together for the promotional event at the Sydney Opera House but the Australians were left waiting for almost half an hour to start proceedings and then concluded the show just as the New Zealanders arrived.

Smith, who attended the event along with coach Ricky Stuart and stars Mark Gasnier and Greg Inglis, said the Kiwis had been rude towards the international game by turning up so late.

"It's not rude to us, it's probably rude to the international game because we're trying to promote the World Cup and we feel it's important to keep trying to promote the international game," said Smith.

"(They were) a little bit late, yeah. Stephen Kearney's first assignment as (New Zealand) coach, not too good.

"(But) really from the Australian point of view it doesn't really bother us or our preparation or what not, but it's a bit of a shame."

Kearney accepted the blame for being late, apologising that assistant coach Wayne Bennett's defensive training session at Moore Park had run over time.

The Kiwis had also planned to travel directly from the training ground to the function, but Kearney felt it necessary to send his players back to the team's hotel at Bondi for a recovery session before heading to the city.

But while the Australians brought three stars and their coach to the launch, the Kiwis had two dropped players in David Kidwell and Lance Hohaia along with skipper Roy Asotasi and Kearney arrive late.

"We were supposed to leave Moore Park to come to the function and we decided to go home so the boys could do their recovery first which is a very important process and obviously we arrived late," said Kearney.

"We wanted to be here for the launch but it was really important our players made sure they recovered well.

"It's disappointing and we're sorry we let everybody down."

While the function was to kick-start the promotion for the end-of-season World Cup, Centenary Test organisers would not have been pleased with the Kiwis' late arrival considering it was the main media opportunity of the day to build up hype for Friday's under-selling Test match.

Less than 10,000 tickets have been pre-sold for the event and while rugby league typically attracts strong walk up crowds, officials fear the 36,000-seat SCG being left half empty for the historic game.

While Australian coach Ricky Stuart did his best to pump up interest in the clash, he was more forgiving of the Kiwis than his captain, adding "it takes a lot to get my back up".

"The New Zealand boys were training and it's very difficult to fit it all in," Stuart said.

"It's a very short week and we have a lot of appearances, a lot of media and promotion of the game by the players and unfortunately it had to be on now because we have to go off to training as well.

"Just fitting it in and getting everybody at the one venue at the same time is difficult."

The World Cup campaign has a `Heroes Here08' theme and is featured by Natalie Bassingthwaighte's rendition of the Mariah Carey classic "Hero".

Stars from each of the 10 competing nations for the October 25 to November 22 event to be held around Australia all feature in the advertising material.

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