Blood & Mud

New Zealand completely bottle it again

France 20 - 18 New Zealand
They say that there are two certainties in life: death and taxes.  One more bullet point needs to be added to this list - New Zealand ballsing up a Rugby World Cup.  Once again, the mighty All Blacks have managed to crumple like a cheap concertina when faced with even the sniff of real pressure.  It's all very well being top of the world for three years, but if you can't win knockout rugby at the very highest level then you are missing the vital ingredient of greatness.

Kiwis everywhere will rant on, with some justification, about some dodgy refereeing calls (McAlalister's binning, not spotting some forward passes for the second French try); but that will not erase the thumping, hammer like pain in the front of their heads beating the mantra "We choked again! We choked again!" ad nauseam.  This is the brutal truth of a team that has been preparing for three years to scale the heights they failed to reach since 1987 only to once more die a death short of the summit.

France spent the entirety of the first forty launching kick after kick at the grateful Kiwi back-three to gobble up, and the Blacks in turn launched them back.  It made for a spectacle as riveting as watching Rob Andrew knit a scarf.  However, it was New Zealand that made all the real play in the half, deservedly going in as 13-3 leaders.

I'm uncertain what Bernard Laporte's half-time talk was, but I am pretty sure it revolved around the keywords: stop, ball, kicking, away, bastards.  It worked, from the off France were competitive and hard, showing the All Blacks to be much less than the behemoth that the media would have us all believe.  They and France traded tries, with only an Elissalde conversion separating the sides at 20-18.  And it was here that the true nature of the "greatest side in the world" revealed itself.

With five minutes on the clock and just six yards short of the French line, the AB's opted to constantly drive through the middle of the ruck or close to the fringes, leaving the backs twiddling their thumbs for an amazing 26 phases of play.  Are you England in disguise?  No, because England won today, and it is this craven passage of play which shows us that NZ are weak at the ultimate pinch-point and therefore once again not the best in the world.

England v France now awaits next weekend, and if anyone says they predicted that they are either lying or mad. 

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New Zealand completely bottle it again

France 20 - 18 New Zealand
They say that there are two certainties in life: death and taxes.  One more bullet point needs to be added to this list - New Zealand ballsing up a Rugby World Cup.  Once again, the mighty All Blacks have managed to crumple like a cheap concertina when faced with even the sniff of real pressure.  It's all very well being top of the world for three years, but if you can't win knockout rugby at the very highest level then you are missing the vital ingredient of greatness.

Kiwis everywhere will rant on, with some justification, about some dodgy refereeing calls (McAlalister's binning, not spotting some forward passes for the second French try); but that will not erase the thumping, hammer like pain in the front of their heads beating the mantra "We choked again! We choked again!" ad nauseam.  This is the brutal truth of a team that has been preparing for three years to scale the heights they failed to reach since 1987 only to once more die a death short of the summit.

France spent the entirety of the first forty launching kick after kick at the grateful Kiwi back-three to gobble up, and the Blacks in turn launched them back.  It made for a spectacle as riveting as watching Rob Andrew knit a scarf.  However, it was New Zealand that made all the real play in the half, deservedly going in as 13-3 leaders.