Sounds like spin to me. Could be a great way to make positioning of an otherwise zero pax flight profitable (or at least get some revenue from FF sales and carrier charges). Huge media advantage gained from this.
So can we take it as a confident prediction by QF that the team will be coming home from the World Cup immediately after the quarter-finals?
FWIW, I had a look at the MEL-NRT-MEL schedules, about which I knew nothing before. In the w/c 21 October, the (normally daily) flights are interrupted in that MEL-NRT is non-op on 21 October, and NRT-MEL is non-op on 21 October and 26 October. So it looks like the 26 October NRT-MEL Points Plane may just be the aircraft that would otherwise have operated the standard NRT-MEL flight.