The Silver Fern

Congratulations South Africa, immense game and a win for the ages.

Also a loss for one and I shed a few tears.

After SC’s red I had a lot of mates saying we were done, game over, but I had a strong feeling it would galvanize us and we would win.

Well I was wrong but kind of right.

Apart from the decisions to turn down points and missed kicks what killed us was the 50/50’s, our timing was out by a split second all game, difficult conditions.

We won against Ireland by a) taking the points on offer (and they lost by kicking to the corner) and b) not throwing 50/50’s. Not sure why we were still trying that touch rugby at the beach shit late into the 4th quarter.

Tl;dr this one hurts more than most.

Barnes, TMO, 14, 13, 12 men we are expected to and actually could of and should have won but didn’t play percentage footy like we did against Ireland.

C’est la vie, we’ll be back.

@Kiwiwomble because we have (seemingly) unlimited upvotes. I believe the mods performed a sort of quantitative upvoting easing in light of unprecedented upvote shortages after the 2011 final and now here we are in an inflationary spiral

@Nepia dual status as (at the beginning of the wc) underdogs and neutrals supporting us. Had English mates come out this week and say “I hope you guys win because I want running rugby to win.” World gone upside down.

@Dodge actual LOL

@Machpants I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a bait and switch - we know (see first half qf) they can razzle dazzle when they want/need to. Expect the unexpected.

Mitchell - unforgivable

@gt12 legend

Maybe we’ve passed on the curse of doing defensive bombs at critical moments

England line speed insane

Boks embodying Mike Tysons maxim of having a great plan until getting punched in the mouth

Keystone cops

We’re back!

Critical line out here

Time to empty the bench….oh wait

Pivotal moment

Let’s practice some defensive box kicks 14 on 15

Probably was a bit gassed and needed a breather