RWC 2011: THE FINAL!!! France vs. New Zealand

[InsaneAsylum]

congrats to the all blacks and comiserations to france. france played extremely well and it was good to see my kiwi mates sweating it out for a change instead of me. now my wife understands why I was losing my **** when we played south africa.

anyway, new zealand were deserved champs and the only unfortunate thing is that it marked the end of the world cup. it's been great for the sport and I wish it was held every year.

and go donald... wish I had wore my chiefs 10 jersey last night

 

[Aout]

Quick question (I'm not implying ANYTHING) : why didn't we have live replay of Donald's penalty and Yachvili's penalty during the game ? Has it ever happened before ?

 

[ACT1NUP]

Seems the ABs played their final last week. Talk about being under the pump, France threw everything at it and more. Seems they won the game everywhere but on the scoreboard. Definitely nervous throughout but the old discipline and defence pulled us through. Best moment for me had to be Woodcocks try, masterclass. Pretty relieved to finally be the actual best team and world champs at the same time. Big chunk of our team is staying on too with plenty of young up and coming talent. Just to remind the rest of the rugby world

 

[LaHire]

The ABs finally got a hard game for the first time in this tournament and thankfully they won it! But respect to the French side they played a good and strong match and if Trin-duc scored that penalty i think it would be the French celebrating the world cup. Nobody believed the French would get to the final but they did and they played like they had nothing to lose. And they brought it to the kiwis. But why complain about bad refereeing etc. the French lost period. And if you look at the whole tournament the best team won! I think if the French keep playing like they played in the final the 6nations are up for the grab. So all you French supporters stop complaining about the ref i don't think the ABs won because of bad refereeing they were just the team with the most points on the board at the end of 80min....;-)
The French are second in the World that's not bad am i right??

You summarized my feeling few after the match. I told myself : "Im french, french channel, I only looked for NZ faults etc..." So I got the match viewed by fox sports and anglo-saxons commentators, to know their mind about the referee's decisions (and because TF1 just make me cry, poor analysis, abstracted explanations...).
And I have been happy to note that I was not too inobjective.
After several phases, at the 4th min the commentator says the french should have been given a penalty several times for not rolling away at the breakdown; and all along the match, Mc Caw in particular did a dirty job in the rucks like this (not talking about the hit on Parra "accident of movement" said ironically the speaker 12th min).
Some very obvious off side not whistled, (11th50 sc the kiwi chaser on an up and go was clearly off side not 1 meter), whereas Parra was sanctioned severely at 4thmin45sc when the 9 black almost touch the ball, parra starts then goes back=penalty... After that, the ref gives a penalty against the black (12thmin05sc) in a ruck the black was legal here, the ref missed obvious things and over-arbitrated others.
He was neither serene nor equilibrate.
It changes everything when instead of camping on the other side of the field you have to defend against a so powerful team. The ten first minutes have been decisive, french attacks slowed down then unjustified penalty after having let Mc Caw pourrish the game, and no score.
After that, from 24th min to half time, the blacks played so were more exposed to handling errors than penalties, nothing scandalous to notice, but occasions missed are never recovered.

I like "liberal" referees, but I think he took pressure of being in NZ front of the Kiwi public, and also from anglo-saxons medias all along the week, that just crushed the frenchs on paper (history of french bad things not only about rugby...Hostile atmosphere). He was cold to whistle against NZ several times at the beginning then he felt bad and tried to reequilibrate inappropriately.
Someone had a nice formula, saying that after all, the blacks deserve to win the WC and the frenchs the final, I agree with it.
But I also think that a WC is the result of many factors that were gathered this year. It could take a long before suchs ingredients be mixed again. Big deception to lose like this, the difference is too tiny for me to accept a defeat in the play and only in the play.

 

[Black Heart]

I will give credit where credits due, France outplayed us in the Final, but you can give us credit where credits due.
We deserved to be winners, we played a smarter game plan and we showed a lot of heart and commitment.

I think we can safely say that a lot of AB's didn't have their best games of the tournament, but every single AB gave 150%.
Every single AB is a deserved champion.

That ref had absolutely no influence on the outcome of the game, nuff said.

Don't agree with that. We were content to keep the ball in our own half which could have proven fatal if the French had been given 1 or 2 more penalties. The one thing I couldn't get over was once we got a turn over in our own territory we simply bombed it high in midfield and gave the ball straight back to them. It was such a silly tactic because you can't score points if you don't have the territory and that's why were were on defense most of the night. If the All Blacks had kicked for territory rather than possesion they would have made there job a damn sight easier. They did it for significant periods against the Aussies and it worked like a charm. But at the end of the day they won, so good on them. Their defense was outstanding though, that was good to watch.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Did they give Wayne Barnes the same treatment in 2007? Honestly the anti-AB (and to a lesser extent Aus) bias that exists in much of the UK media smacks of pure envy. Ignore these bitter little clowns.

I can only assume you've never read any UK media - they flipping LOVE the ABs

 

[Surefire]

Congrats ALL BLACKS! We were close tonight, but at the end of the day the ABs have been class all tournament, and they had enough to see them through. Proud of the French team that really gave it their all and both teams gave the whole world a great show.
Thanks New Zealand for an an awesome World Cup!!

 

[james5000]

Don't agree with that. We were content to keep the ball in our own half which could have proven fatal if the French had been given 1 or 2 more penalties. The one thing I couldn't get over was once we got a turn over in our own territory we simply bombed it high in midfield and gave the ball straight back to them. It was such a silly tactic because you can't score points if you don't have the territory and that's why were were on defense most of the night. If the All Blacks had kicked for territory rather than possesion they would have made there job a damn sight easier. They did it for significant periods against the Aussies and it worked like a charm. But at the end of the day they won, so good on them. Their defense was outstanding though, that was good to watch.

The sign of a great team is winning when you don't play well. We achieved that last night. I thought our tactical kicking was spot on for most of the match.
The thing is when we kicked it to France, France were good enough to get it back into our territory.

It seemed like we kicked for good distance a number of times in the 2nd half only to get penalized and give the french a free ride in to our territory.

You are one of the most negative NZ fans that there are on this forum, can't you just feel happy for the team for once and give them some credit.

How were we on defence for most of the night when were content for holding possession? We were good with our clearing kicks, France may have had the ball more often but they never really got within 30m of our line. France played well, but we were disciplined and we were smarter.

 

[Zapphod]

I will give credit where credits due, France outplayed us in the Final, but you can give us credit where credits due.
We deserved to be winners, we played a smarter game plan and we showed a lot of heart and commitment.

I think we can safely say that a lot of AB's didn't have their best games of the tournament, but every single AB gave 150%.
Every single AB is a deserved champion.

That ref had absolutely no influence on the outcome of the game, nuff said.

I disagree whole heartedly, to say France played well would be fact but to say they played better is a fallacy borne out by the final score.

As for the ref, I thought he was ok, I have no doubt he missed some things but he missed them for both sides so at the very worst he was fair but lets face it ref's can't win these days it seems to be a damned if they do and damned if they don't situation no matter what they do some one is always telling them they were wrong.

 

[Siva Tau]

Great performance by France in 2nd half against a tired AB's who showed enough discipline & sound defence to repel the attacks. France will rue missed penalties but so will AB's.

 

[Black Heart]

The sign of a great team is winning when you don't play well. We achieved that last night. I thought our tactical kicking was spot on for most of the match.
The thing is when we kicked it to France, France were good enough to get it back into our territory.

Watch the replay. For the most part of the night all we did was bomb it in mid-field (many of these kicks actually came from Israel Dagg) All the French had to do to get back into the All Blacks' territory was catch the ball.

It seemed like we kicked for good distance a number of times in the 2nd half only to get penalized and give the french a free ride in to our territory.

We did kick for territory on occasion and that was good to see. Unfortunatly we didn't do it enough (especially in the second half) even after Graham Henry had said he made a point of it at half time.

You are one of the most negative NZ fans that their are on this forum, can't you just feel happy for the team for once and give them some credit.

Come off it James. Of course I'm happy for them. I argued what you said about how "we played a smarter game plan" because that was far from the truth. You yourself just admitted that we didn't play well so go and argue with yourself in that case. From the looks of things you're the only one on here who seems to think the All Blacks were the superior tonight. I thought the French played the batter game but unfortunatly for them, the All Blacks' defense proved very strong. The French had us under pressure all night and the only time we really looked like scoring was when we actually did.

I'm not being negative, I'm being analytic. A wise person once said to me that "A great man wins on his weaknesses" or in this case, "A great side wins on its weaknesses"
In other words, it's always important to focus on what you've done poorly more so than what you've done well.

How were we on defence for most of the night when were content for holding possession? We were good with our clearing kicks, France may have had the ball more often but they never really got within 30m of our line. France played well, but we were disciplined and we were smarter.

Because the majority of our kicks weren't for territory, they were to make the Frech contest for possession and thus, for us to regain it.

 

[Tricia McMillan]

Should have let Stephen Donald kick the ball into touch at the end of the game. Would have made his redemption complete.

 

[Black Heart]

Should have let Stephen Donald kick the ball into touch at the end of the game. Would have made his redemption complete.

Or his execution ...

 

[james5000]

I'm not being negative, I'm being analytic. A wise person once said to me that "A great man wins on his weaknesses" or in this case, "A great side wins on its weaknesses"
In other words, it's always important to focus on what you've done poorly more so than what you've done well.

Haha, yeah you do appear to think by this motto.

I guess that same person didn't tell you to give credit where credits due haha

I'll watch the replay one day, but for now i'm just happy they "knocked the ******* off" haha

 

[barthelemy]

Great match ! Proud France has turned up..Like in 2007, the victory is the story of a few little things, a bit of creativity mainly...What a fight overall ! I really enjoyed it :} French forwards have been awesome, Just a look to the faces of the ABs at the end of the match, it was not a pleasure party Dussautoir et Pape, what a performance ! I would like all matches of rugby being such a fight, such a focus, and such an intensity during 80 minutes.

Overall I do not agree with people saying that France outperformed ABs. I think it was quite equal through the game. A first half dominated by the Blacks and a second half by the frenchies. with Weepu missing 2 relatively easy penalties.

About some odd calls, I Feared at the start that Joubert would really throw this game badly but I think he has made it up to the french in the second half. He was favorising a lot the attacking side I thought. Anyway, the referee is part of the game..And a referee is not a machine and he has his way to boss all of that.



Congrats New Zealand

 

[Siva Tau]

I thought there was a bit of panic in AB's coaches box with the timing of some changes. Weepu was fair enough. I thought Kahui may have been brought in at 13 to break the line with SBW on wing, whilst I also think Vito may have added something too but all history now.

Wonder if Sth Hemisphere will continue to dominate world cups with only England the only none southerners to hold the trophy.

 

[Siva Tau]

Great match ! Proud France has turned up..Like in 2007, the victory is the story of a few little things, a bit of creativity mainly...What a fight overall ! I really enjoyed it :} French forwards have been awesome, Just a look to the faces of the ABs at the end of the match, it was not a pleasure party Dussautoir et Pape, what a performance ! I would like all matches of rugby being such a fight, such a focus, and such an intensity during 80 minutes.

Overall I do not agree with people saying that France outperformed ABs. I think it was quite equal through the game. A first half dominated by the Blacks and a second half by the frenchies. with Weepu missing 2 relatively easy penalties.

About some odd calls, I Feared at the start that Joubert would really throw this game badly but I think he has made it up to the french in the second half. He was favorising a lot the attacking side I thought. Anyway, the referee is part of the game..And a referee is not a machine and he has his way to boss all of that.



Congrats New Zealand

You should be proud dude they had a red hot go and thats all anyone could have asked.

 

[james5000]

 

[Black Heart]

I guess that same person didn't tell you to give credit where credits due haha

Edited: I've already said well done to the All Blacks, that I'm very happy for them and that I thought their defense in particular was superb last light. Use your eyes and try reading s**t occasionally.

I'll watch the replay one day, but for now i'm just happy they "knocked the ******* off" haha

More to the point: You don't want to be proven wrong. Suit yourself.

 

[smartcooky]

Quick question (I'm not implying ANYTHING) : why didn't we have live replay of Donald's penalty and Yachvili's penalty during the game ? Has it ever happened before ?

We don't usually replay kicks at goal in the Southern Hemisphere unless there is something questionable, e.g. some people thought Steven Donald's kick missed. It didn't.

Usually, only tries and dropped-goals are replayed, as far as scoring goes.