Rugby World Cup Final 2011: Don’t Believe the Press
Well, that was brilliant! What a polarizing game. Those who wanted free-flowing rugby would say it wasn’t up to snuff, but I have never seen such an arm-wrestle of a game, let alone a final!
Some say the better team on the night didn’t win, but I think that’s bullshit. What I saw was a powered-up French team with nothing to lose playing their out of the box stunning game where they can beat anyone in the world…yet they still lost. Why? They were playing the only team in the world that could possibly contain them. No one else in the world could have won against that French team that turned up last night.
Don’t forget what 24 years of pressure from within and without can do to a side. The All Blacks were playing with that burden on their shoulders against a side with practically none.
As a game it wasn’t pretty, but this All Black team did what none of the forebears could; they won an incredibly tight match by grinding it out and neither conceding a penalty nor making a handling error when it mattered, when the pressure was suffocating.
Yes, there were parts of the game where I felt a drop goal or penalty would decide it against us, and yes we looked overwhelmed at times but the tenacity and grit that has been instilled in this team for eight years finally shone through.
We won the arm wrestle, we finally stamped our no.1 status on world rugby, able to lift the cup as victors once more.
