Ball-retention does the job

New Zealand have finally buried their World Cup-final curse and  silenced the detractors who  claimed they might choke when the Webb Ellis Trophy was within their grasp. In an epic final on Sunday they displayed character and resolve in the face of a massive onslaught by Les Bleus and won 8-7 – the first time in 24 years that the All Blacks have won the Webb Ellis Trophy. And the sigh of relief in the Land of the Long White Cloud was tangible.

France also made a mockery of the New Zealand people, the media and the All Blacks pre-match assertion that they had no place in this final and were amont the worst teams ever to have contested a Rugby World Cup final.

Their fiery attitude, physicality and enormous resolve were the standout-features of the match, especially in the second half during which the All Black try-line was under siege in the final 20 minutes.

If a World XV was selected at the end of the Rugby World Cup, at least three French forwards would have been part of it, as the eighth man, Imano lHarinodoquy, and the captain, Thierry Dusautoir, were immense. And, the tighthead prop, Nicolas Mas, really put Tony Woodcock under pressure in the scrums during that final.

If Francois Trinh-Duc had succeeded with a long-range penalty late in the match, New Zealand might have been in national mourning, deriding themselves for writing off the French prematurely.

But perhaps that is justice, for New Zealand suffered at the hands of an off-colour referee and a blatant forward pass in 2007 at the quarter-final stage of the Rugby World Cup.

Richie McCaw was immense on Sunday, and so were many members of the team who defended like demons in the face of a formidable forward-onslaught by their French opponents.

If that World XV was selected, McCaw would have been part of the engine room with Brad Thorn, while Israel Dagg and Ma’aNonu as well as Cory Jane would have featured in the backline.

Reflecting on the final, the coach Graham Henry hailed his team's resolve.

"We've all been through it before and it was not a pleasant experience not to do the business, but I'm very proud of the way the guys hung in there, showed their character, showed their resilience and showed the discipline not to give away penalties at 8-7 to win the game," he said.

McCaw, too, was delighted by New Zealand's composure.

"It says a lot about the men we have in the team. It wasn't the prettiest performance, but we had to have courage and the desire to win," McCaw told www.rugby365.com.

"Today was about hanging in there. I take my hat off to all the men.

"The big thing was not to panic, though we seemed to do that at the kick-off.

"It is about preparing for situations like that and we prepared for those situations this week," the openside flanker added.

"It is how you react. If you are a leader or captain, you have to keep the belief and captain. The last thing we wanted to do was panic and we managed to hang in,” he said.

Perhaps those words say much about the growth of the team the past four years.

New Zealand panicked in the quarter-final of the 2007 Rugby World Cup, partially because they lacked leadership in key positions, notably at flyhalf, where Dan Carter was taken off.

In 2011, they had more mature leaders in key positions, and the All Blacks simply did not panic or choke even when they were on the back foot and in their own red zone with a penalty a real possibility.

The final again demonstrated that in knockout-phases, it is trench warfare, solid defence and excellent goal kicking that could decide the outcome of the match.

France laid down a marker for South African teams playing against New Zealand in the Castle Tri-Nations.

They showed that if you are in the All Blacks’ faces and use your forward strength well, the Kiwi’s are beatable.

If France possessed a superb goal kicker, the scoreboard tale might have been different.

Currie Cup home stretch

The one thing that both New Zealand and France, and the two winning Currie Cup-teams, the Sharks and the Lions, showed, is that you need to protect ball possession at all cost.

The Lions hardly ever let go of the ball, they protected the possession through multi-phases and pressuris ed the Western Province into fatal errors during their 29-20 win at Ellis Park.

The Sharks did the same against the Free State Cheetahs in their semi-final in Durban.

Remarkably, the Cheetahs lost their way in the second half through a silly late tackle by Rayno Benjamin and three poor line-out options by the Cheetah captain, Adriaan Strauss, and the two locks.

When the Cheetahs lost their ability to control ball possession and build pressure and momentum, the Sharks dominated the rest of the match, and the young Free State team succumbed to the pressure.

The Lions, thanks to a magnificent Derick Minnie, dominated possession, and seldom squandered it through aimless kicking.

You don’t need to be expansive, but you have to subscribe to the theory: “possession is nine-tenths of the (rugby) law”.

If you respect this rugby truth, the scoreboard will (mostly) respect you.

By the way, there would have been at least three Springboks in the World XV: Guthro Steenkamp, Victor Matfield and Bismarck du Plessis.

Jamie Roberts, Rhys Priestland and Shane Williams would have been the Welsh representatives, with Will Genia the only Australian in the final 15.

Priestland would have been the pivot at flyhalf in the absence of Dan Carter and his injured deputy Aaron Cruden.

It is an excellent team, but our guess is that when the next World Cup is contested in 2015, there will be more South Africans selected at the end of the event, simply because we are entering a golden era in SA rugby.

Fanie Heyns