WE HAVE OUR final.
The two superpowers of southern-hemisphere rugby will meet in the middle in Paris. When the dust settles on the Stade de France, one of South Africa and New Zealand will have four World Cups to their name, the other left on three.
This is a battle for global supremacy between two of the sport’s closest rivals historically, and two very evenly matched teams in 2023.
But their respective semi-finals were anything but even, and I can’t help but feel that may prove decisive this Saturday night.
From an Irish perspective, New Zealand’s 44-6 demolition of Argentina on Friday night just rubbed salt in our wounds, really.
All I could think while watching it was, ‘What if?’
Calling a spade a spade, Argentina just weren’t at the same level as the other three semi-finalists. They’re very one-dimensional in attack and they just didn’t have the shape or the artillery to breach that New Zealand defence. I’m confident that Ireland would have beaten the Pumas as handily as the All Blacks managed to in the end.
It wrecked my head afterwards to see a few people crediting Ireland for being able to compete with that New Zealand team for so long. It’s just not a mindset I can get behind. We could have, and maybe should have, beaten them — in which case we’d certainly be looking ahead to a final this week.
I still find that very tough to take, personally.
But full credit to New Zealand — again. They were ruthless in the championship minutes. They never even let the game become a contest.
And that they were able to kill it so early could have a huge bearing on Saturday’s final against the Springboks.
New Zealand were able to swap off eight players early on Friday night. In fact, they were so far clear by the end that they actually took nine off, declining to send Scott Barrett back on after his late sin-binning.
They cruised through that second half using really basic shapes. They barely scratched the surface of their capabilities because they didn’t need to.
What a stark contrast that was to reigning world champions South Africa, who have now been taken to the depths of hell in consecutive tests. You can’t underestimate the enormous emotional and physical toll the last two weeks will have taken on their players.
I have to say I thought England were incredible against the Boks on Saturday.
We all knew what was coming from an England team coached by Steve Borthwick: they played their biggest back three — Jonny May, Elliot Daly and Freddie Steward — and kicked the ball down on top of Cheslin Kolbe and Kurt-Lee Arendse who are short wingers by international standard.
They didn’t score a try and they never even looked like scoring a try. Their performance was instead about pressure, physicality, and kicking their 3-6-9s to make the Boks have to chase them on the scoreboard.
For most of the game, England more closely resembled South Africa than the Boks themselves. All in all, it was probably their best performance since their World Cup semi-final victory over New Zealand four years ago.
With that in mind, even more credit must go to South Africa who hung in there even at nine points down, while every small moment seemed to be swinging England’s way. One of the least celebrated but most impressive things about these Springboks is how they simply never go away.
It took every fibre of their being to win that game, including an Ox Nché scrummaging masterclass and a clutch kick by Handre Pollard.
For the second week on the spin, they edged an unbelievable contest.
Pollard’s winning kick raises an interesting question as to what South Africa do at out-half this Saturday.
For the last couple of games, they’ve started Manie Libbok and brought Pollard off the bench to fasten their grip on the game.
Rassie Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber accelerated that process against England, hooking Libbok after just 31 minutes — which I thought was the correct decision.
Libbok is a running threat, a very expansive attacking player, and he was enduring a bit of a nightmare in the extremely wet conditions.
If you want to play cup rugby, kick the corners, and kick your goals, Pollard is your man. And I think he should be South Africa’s man from the start against the All Blacks, as well.
I’ve always maintained that Libbok could create an even bigger spark off the bench against tired legs when the game has loosened, albeit you have to take into consideration, then, that he might wind up taking a crucial kick at goal late on which wouldn’t be ideal.
Still, if I was the Boks, I would flip the running order at 10 this Saturday, when the forecast is for rain again.
It’s going to be an intriguing battle up front between South Africa’s powerful pack and their All Black equivalents who proved against Ireland that they can absolutely live with anyone on their day. And if New Zealand can play with the kind of ferocity that they brought to the table against Ireland, I’ve no doubt they can match the Boks in that space.
Thinking back to that Ireland game especially, the question now is, ‘Where can you actually gain an edge on this New Zealand team?’
But South Africa will be acutely aware of the extent to which Ireland misfired in the scrum and the maul, denying them access into the game at key junctures. And it just so happens that those are two areas of the game which are steeped in South Africa’s rugby DNA.
If the Boks can pressure New Zealand in those areas, they have every chance of making an even bigger dent in New Zealand than Ireland managed to.
And for those reasons, if all things were even, I’d still be leaning towards South Africa on Saturday night.
But the reality is that all things are not even.
I know what South Africa poured into those last two games and it’s very difficult not to see them tiring in the second half of this final as a result.
In terms of their preparation this week, there will be little to no pitch work. There’ll be a couple of jog-arounds to nail down plays, but there’ll be no physicality at all. For the Boks, this will be more of a mental-prep week than a physical-prep week. It’ll be about emotionally recharging so that you can get back up to that physical level for a third week on the spin.
New Zealand’s prep will be roughly the same but they’re in an amazing position in that they didn’t have to go to the well to anywhere near the same extent — and yet they still have a day more than South Africa to recover having played a day earlier last week.
You might ask yourself whether or not that additional 24 hours is especially important but let me tell you from first-hand experience: it 100% is.
During my playing career, whether it was international games, later-stage Champions Cup games, or even inter-provincial games, my body was in bits for two to three days afterwards, every single time.
What’s happening, ultimately, is that your muscles are bleeding from contact.
I’d be in ribbons the day after the game but it was usually actually the day after that — say, the Monday after a Saturday game — when I was typically at my sorest. And then, after about three days, you start to recover.
For a lot of those South African players, that especially sore day would have been Tuesday, when most of the All Blacks would have already begun the process of healing from any knocks taken in a far less physical game with Argentina.
It’s harder to contextualise the emotional recharge required for a World Cup final, but that too is going to be a bigger ask of South Africa than it is their opponents this week.
For those reasons, I’m leaning ever so slightly towards New Zealand.
I see this game being on a knife-edge but I think the fact that the All Blacks were able to get the job done so early against Argentina might give them the fractional advantage.
It feels crazy to back against South Africa in a World Cup final but I just think the Boks might have clocked up slightly too much mileage over the last couple of weeks to get over the finish line in first this time around.
Who will win Saturday’s Rugby World Cup final? (Odds courtesy of BoyleSports)
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