All Blacks one step away from glory

The All Blacks are now just one step away from ending their World Cup drought after thumping Australia.

It was a great day all round...the weather was fine, prompting an estimated 12 000 people to take the “Fan Walk”, a trek of about five kilometres from downtown Auckland to Eden Park. They were entertained along the way by all manner of street performers and there was lots of good banter.

Driving past I noticed a lot of Springbok fans, all wearing their green, but many of them sporting an All Black flag, or hat, or scarf. It made me feel proud. These guys would have been bitterly disappointed at their team's early exit, but it showed that while we are the fiercest of rivals, there is such incredible respect for each other that they should want to support the New Zealand team. As we say here, “good on-ya mates”.

There are also many South African expats living in New Zealand, and what a lot of them tend to do is support their old South African team in Super Rugby, and the Springboks in test matches, but when it is time for the All Blacks playing someone else, they support New Zealand, and I think that’s really cool.

The atmosphere for the match was electric. New Zealand fans have tended to be not the most demonstrative in the world.....they are more inclined to sit back, wait for things to happen and then react, but, on this night, with so much at stake, and with thousands of Wallaby fans in the crowd, they were at fever pitch and the noise was incredible.

They got just the start they wanted with a classic “Cooper-Blooper”, with Quade Cooper putting the opening kick-off out on the full. That sparked a furious opening quarter from the All Blacks, and while they didn’t establish a big lead they had done a lot of damage, establishing dominance in key areas of the game, and they never looked like relinquishing the lead. Only resolute Aussie defence and some wayward AB goal kicking kept the score down, but the Wallabies could find nothing on attack.

As the game neared its end you could sense the anxiety and pressure lifting off the All Black shoulders and the grim realisation settling on the Wallabies as their hopes flickered and died. It is all part of the drama of these tournaments.

It was a hell of a good game, and I thought Craig Joubert did a fantastic job refereeing it, and he deserves to be in the final.

He showed great control over the scum and breakdown area, which are the two areas that have not been refereed particularly well in this tournament. He doesn’t dominate, and while he is a naturally genial sort of person, I like the way his authority has grown over the years....the key is he only exerts it when he needs to, like when he gave Rocky Elsom a sharp rebuke late in the game. By that stage Elsom had completely lost the plot, and ended up giving Conrad Smith a rather vicious facial for which he should have been cited.

So now it is time for the decider.

It is hard to understand how France can be in the final, having lost to the All Blacks and Tonga, and yet teams like Wales, Ireland, South Africa and England, who lost only once, are out of it. Such are the vagaries of tournament play.

I sometimes think that the RWC has become too dominant on the landscape.....does it really prove who the best team in the world is, or does it merely say who got it together best over a six week period once every four years, and maybe who copped a few lucky or unlucky breaks along the way?

But still, even though the All Blacks have been in the number one ranking spot for a good while now, many New Zealand fans will not accept that they are the best unless they can beat France this weekend.

They are dangerous, the French. They have a gnarly tight five, excellent loose forwards and enough talent and power in their backs to score a try or two, and that may be all that is needed.

Their form is lousy, so bad that they nearly lost to a 14-man Welsh team, there is obvious tension between their coach and the players. At times during this tournament Marc Lievremont has looked like a dog hoping for the clouds to clear so he can bark at the moon!

But they have twice beaten the All Blacks in World Cup matches, and until they are put away and the final whistle has sounded, the All Blacks still have not won a World Cup since 1987. France have twice won before at Eden Park and if they play like only the French can, then they are not without a chance.

Having said that if the All Blacks produce anything like the intensity shown against Australia, then they will not be denied, and they will at last have a trophy many thought they could not win without Dan Carter.

It’s going to be a long, slow week waiting for this one.

Finally it was a shame to see a red card do such damage to the gallant Welsh team's hopes. My feeling is that the referee Alain Rolland did what the refs have been told to do, and take a zero tolerance approach to such tackles, which could have catastrophic consequences.

The question is whether such a sanction should be allowed to ruin a contest?

Rugby league has a system where players under suspicion are placed “on report” rather than be sent off, and dealt with later, but to me this isn’t good enough as it means players can take out a key member of the opposition and not have to worry about the consequences until after the game.

Perhaps a red card should mean banishment for the offending player, but his team be allowed a replacement....but only after say 10 or even 15 minutes of playing with 14 men.