The petition on Change.org, entitled “Change the kick-off time of the Rugby World Cup final” and seemingly initiated by the “Green and Gold Rugby” website, had 450 signatures on Wednesday morning. “Whoever wins them, wins the cup”. The Kiwis’ victory over their arch-rival in this year’s Anzac showdown catapulted them to number one in the world ahead of Australia, with England a distant third.
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It doesn’t matter whether they are chasing or being chased in a match, they hardly ever crack.
Rugby is New Zealand’s game. It’s about bragging rights.
Earlier in the week Wallabies coach Michael Cheika bristled at commentary in New Zealand media that Folau was a “borderline liability” in his current state, backing to the hilt the player he brought across from rugby league via AFL nearly three years ago.
“There’s a lot of leadership in the group and we’ve seen that in our game so far and we’re going to need that in our game on Saturday”.
But that would have been the other sort of dream final – a thing only possible in the realm of the imagination. And that is what we have. New Zealand and Australia have both proven themselves over six undefeated matches apiece to be the real deal. Two of the All Black wins were scored at Eden Park, and like the World Cup semi-final between those teams there in 2011, they were won emphatically by the wearers of the silver fern. Julian Savea or Adam Ashley-Cooper?
Queensland and Wallabies legend Eales is one of just four players also including Tim Horan, Jason Little and Dan Crowley to have played in both of Australia’s World Cup-winning sides, having captained the team in the 1999 tournament.
Pocock’s influence was clearly missed as he sat out the Scotland cliffhanger with injury, but he was in irrepressible form last week and is primed for the game of a lifetime in the final.
“World Rugby confirmed the news that everyone had been expecting since All Blacks selector Grant Fox let the ref out of the bag”. Cagey, close and claustrophobic has been the way of it many times in the past, not least last time out, when the All Blacks grunted past France 8-7.
New Zealand supposedly shed the mental torment of two decades of World Cup failures by triumphing on home soil in 2011. First there is the vision – in the England case to switch play right to left after dragging most of the cover to the wrong side of a ruck.
“I dreamt about playing in the world cup after that”.
“But no, there was this straight focus – ‘what do we have to do to win this game'”. Referees seldom get enough credit for quiet effectiveness. “That’s all you can do really, attack the high ball in the air”, Ben Smith said. The phrase ‘#legend’ is overused but in this case, I think utterly apt.
“We’ve talked about this particular game for a long, long time”. Also, whenever he scores, someone in the Montreal crowd rings a massive iron bell.
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There was no shortage of candidates, with more than half a dozen different players having skippered the Wallabies in recent years, but he went back to the future and chose Stephen Moore. But he is certainly an indomitable competitor, an impeccably professional athlete and, more than anything else, a serial victor.
