@Dodge said in RWC Final: All Blacks v Springboks:

@pakman said in RWC Final: All Blacks v Springboks:

@Dodge said in RWC Final: All Blacks v Springboks:

@pakman said in RWC Final: All Blacks v Springboks:

@Catogrande said in RWC Final: All Blacks v Springboks:

@pakman

You're reaching a bit here mate. You can certainly say France were unlucky lose but equally you can say that if they can't deal with high kicks (not a surprise Saffer tactic) then well, were they really unlucky. Either way SA did enough to win that match. Four tries wasn't it?

It's actually clear cut. The replays show that for winning penalty Kwagga put his right hand on ground for support before trying to effect the turnover. So France should have been kicking for poles instead of Boks. Boks 'won' by one point.

That's with ten to go, so pretty strong likelihood that French would have won by two or more.

a few posts above which reflect but for a decision the other way the ABs / England / France would have beaten the Boks. It misses a vital point, that South Africa did what they had to do to win. Had the penalty against Smith gone the other way in both of the last two games, who's to say SA wouldn't have gone up the other end to score? They were infront in the final, and they played basically no risk rugby, had they needed to score, who knows what they would have done. Against England they were 9 points down with 10 mins or so to go, they did what they needed to do to get infront.

Its easy to dismiss 3, 1 point wins as lucky but its funny how often those 1 point wins fall the way of the team who are better / better at winning.

Similarly, people suggest that NZ would have won had they not had discipline issues (something we England fans have said about England over the last few years) - it ignores the fact that discipline issues come from pressure and playing at a level you're not comfortable sustaining. The Boks defensive and forward intensity and ability to play at that level consistently is almost unrivalled - Ireland have done it for the last 2 years but choked slightly in the quarter final. Most of the Bok penalties conceded in the final were intentional / a calculated risk.

In fact NZ gave away far fewer penalties than SA. And in terms of player safety Kolisi's tackle, which was was always going to involve head contact with Savea, was no better than Cane's. Without his reappearance Boks were finished.

We can argue till the cows come home, but it's pretty clear that arbitrary TMO decisions decided the final, and faulty reffing decisions ended the run of France. I thought England were desparately unlucky with a couple of scrum calls, but it was apparent that Boks finishers were too hot for theirs to handle.

Perhaps the common ground is that, if we're having the premier event in the rugby calendar we need to find a way to ensure that dodgy decisions don't alter the final result.

IMO the TMO was a blight on the tournament and the fans would have been better without it.

Should the TMO be involved as much? Not sure to be honest. I prefer accurate decisions to obvious mistakes being waived on because the ref missed them, I accept that a balance is tough to strike though.

It’s not pretty clear to me that refereeing decisions DECIDED the final, affected it sure, but decided it? Not for me, we can disagree on that if you like but it strikes me a strange position to take given you missed a penalty in the last few minutes.

I think the decison were worth, say, eight points. That ABs got to within one tells you everything about the true merits of the teams.

The Silver Fern

pakman