Ok, fair point, the All Blacks have been the best team of the last 4 years. I do get frustrated watching them play a lot of the time as they have some very talented players and yet very rarely cut loose as they should... although much of that can be put down to the constraints of the game itself than the players

considering Sonny Bill can not get into the first 15. What is the point of him staying in Rugby Union?

Na he took a big wage cut when he left Toulan to go and play in NZ. He took that wage cut cos he wanted to play for the All Blacks. Now the world cup is over he can wait 4 more years or move back to Sydney (which he wants to do) and get paid more playing League.



A french Union side could pay him loads but like I said he wants to live in Sydney so unless a Union Side in Sydney can pay him some big money I think SBW could be back in the NRL.



As for the game. Utter rubbish. A close final but boring. Any other Test environment the All Blacks would of thrown the ball around and dragged France all over the place but as usual what we see in Union in world cup knock out stages is a reluctance to be expansive and the laws of the game allow you to win by being anything but expansive.



There is nothing in that game that League doesnt have but RL has just been slow to promote the game. There is no way that product is better than League.

Just out of curiosity I watched the Union WC Final this morning.



I am sorry but if that is the best that they can come up with it just shows how bias the media are towards union.



Shocking game and I will admit the rules of the game I am not to sure about but God the way the AB's played the game was a joke to say the least,roll on the 4 Nations and we can watch some real rugby(well from NZ and Aus anyway).

Just had a quick sken at some of Monday's back pages and I've yet to see even a mention of the rugby union world cup final.

according to the stats he made 14 tackles - a RL forward would be sacked after putting in that kind of shift (i accept there are 2 more forwards to share the work around but 14 seems pretty low to me)

It's impossible to compare. League and union may have their similarities but in general they are worlds apart.

I'm sort of glad NZ won (I actually wanted France to win near the end just for a laugh), but they came really close to freezing again. They played like they expected France to fall apart, and had no Plan B when they didn't.



On the comments re the other top southern sides, SA have been on a slow decline for a while because they decided a couple of years ago to come to this World Cup with an ageing (but experienced) team. As a result in a number of positions they haven't replaced players they otherwise would have. Australia were just very poor all campaign. Some of their players - notably the halfbacks Genia and particularly Cooper - really underperformed.



The final for me summed up WHY RU works at international level - because you can use safety-first tactics to keep a game tight. Whilst as a free-flowing spectacle it may not be good to watch, tight contests keep interest all the way through. In RL you simply can't do that. Sadly England will have to give on Australia the ball 50% on average.



BTW one tactic which I think a lot of RU sides ought to review is the high kick midfield. I think I saw it work twice or three times during the WC, out of hundreds of attempts.

Let's play adjectives.



"Well it's not beautiful, Nigel"

"It's not, Hugh"

"It doen't have to be, Nigel"

"Absolutely, Hugh"

"But it is thrilling"

"Immense"

"Awesome"

"Huge"

"Enthralling"

"Fantastic"

"Colossal"

"Massive"

"Super"

"I've loved it, Nigel"

"Loved every minute, Hugh"

France captain Thierry Dusautoir named IRB player of the year.

Really?



Saturday October 29 – England v Wales

Saturday November 5 – England v Australia



Which of these 2 games on the BBC will get better ratings than the 6.6 million for the Wales v France semi-final from the RWC?