Rugby World Cup: A Point Made

Now that the Rugby World Cup has been done and dusted and we guage what it's done for the country, there's one point I hope has been absorbed by all rugby fans and critics.  

That is the realisation that it's damned difficult to win the tournament.  

Every four years avid All Black fans have expected, demanded even, that their team wins the Webb Ellis Cup. Most times when the All Blacks enter a World Cup competition, they have such an enviable record that favouritism is heaped upon them.

  That they've failed to live up to expectation every tournamnent since the inaugural one in 1987, has been unacceptable for the majority of rugby-mad Kiwis. They have failed to appreciate that the Rugby World Cup is unlike any other rugby test series.

  The 8-7 scorline on Sunday night will hopefully proove to everyone that just being the form team means bugger all. The All Blacks were the form team in 2011. They bounced off a mighty challenge from the Wallabies and they had demolished France in pool play. They were at home in front of the most excited and noisy crowd ever in New Zealand, on a ground which had become something of a fortress. They knew the whole nation had stopped to watch, and yet there was just one point's difference at the end of a gripping final.

  Hopefully this will all be remembered in four years time. Becoming world champions requires a monumental effort which this time, the All Blacks delivered.      

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