South Africa Wins World Cup Number Four

The rematch of the historical 1995 final, portrayed in the movie ‘Invictus’, goes to the Springboks.

Hamish McConnochie, Attribution, via Wikimedia Commons.

After a long and exhausting tactical fight, the South African Springboks became back-to-back World Champions, keeping a perfect record in the World Cup finals with four wins and no losses.

The team, led by the first black captain of their history Siya Kolisi, beat the All-Blacks 11-12 (T 0-1 P 2-4) with a crucial performance by South Africa n. 10 Handre Pollard. New Zealand was heavily influenced in the first 15 minutes due to a yellow card to Shannon Frizzel that left them without a man for ten crucial minutes that coincided with the first two penalty kicks scored by Pollard (3’, 13’). A red card to the All-Blacks captain Sam Cane gave the Springboks a man advantage playing the rest of the game 15 against 14, the first half ended with the score of 6-12 in a very tactical match.

The second half then became more physical with the New Zealanders trying to take advantage of the yellow card to Siya Kolisi, coming however short at first after a try by Aaron Smith which was denied because of a forward pass, and then coming to a one-point game thanks to a try scored by Bauden Barret only once Kolisi was already back in the game. A monumental defensive performance, after a Richie Mo’unga missed conversion kick, by the South Africa team led by the MVP of the final Pieter-Steph du Toit in the last 20 minutes kept the Webb Ellis Cup in South Africa for another 4 years, making them the most winning team in World Cup history just ahead of New Zealand.

European teams struggled again to prevail over the Southern Hemisphere powerhouses that, with the exception of the unsuccessful Australian campaign, reached the semifinals and eliminated the three big European favourites: Ireland, England and the hosts France.

Australia, which will host the next edition in 2027, was eliminated by the small nation of Fiji by a single point obtained in a loss against Portugal, this was the first group stage elimination in the Australian Wallabies history that now will need to regroup before their home tournament.

The two finalists both lost a game in the group phase, New Zealand was defeated in the opening game by the hosts France in front of 78.690 spectators in Stade de France and a record 15.4 mln viewers on TF1, and South Africa lost against Ireland, who came in the tournament as a favourite after a dominant campaign of 17 game unbeaten.

Quarterfinals saw facing four of the five big favourites in two legendary matches that have been fought until the last second, the All-Blacks defeated Ireland after a hard-fought battle ended with the score of 24-28 (T 3-3, C 2-2, P 1-3.), and the hosts France suffered a tight comeback by the Springboks in a one-point game, 28-29 (T 3-4, C 2-3, P 3-1.).

The semi-finals saw facing Argentina-New Zealand and England-South Africa.

New Zealand dominated his semi-final 6-44 (T 0-7, C 0-3, P 2-1.) against an Argentinian side that played a consistent World Cup eliminating a good Japanese side in the group stage and Wales, which won his group on full points.

In the other semi-final England lost 15-16 (T 0-1, C 0-1, P 4-3, DG 1-0) after a 12-6 lead in the first half, the English team, who came in the match unbeaten in the tournament, lost the lead thanks to a strong performance by the Springboks bench scoring a try with conversion and a scrum penalty kick scored by Handre Pollard which brought South Africa to victory.

France hosted the tournament for the second time after the 2007 edition won by South Africa and will remain on the main sports stage for the next year waiting for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, the whole nation has been involved with games played in Bordeaux, Lyon, Lille, Marseille, Nantes, Nice, Paris, Saint-Étienne and Toulouse. This event was crucial to demonstrate that France was not the same one of the problematic 2022 Champions League Final. The event was a huge success but despite that, it highlighted some problems, especially in the organisation of some stadiums like Marseille that in September had to face some problems. This event however cannot be considered a true benchmark before the Olympics given the huge differences between the two events. The Rugby World Cup was in fact composed of 48 matches played in the span of two months with 1.8 million spectators, meanwhile, the Olympics will take place in only two weeks in the sole city of Paris and with almost 10 million spectators expected by the organisers, so we’ll all have to wait for summer 2024 for the biggest event in the world to take again place in Europe.

References

Matches. (n.d.). Rugby World Cup. Retrieved October 28, 2023, https://www.rugbyworldcup.com/2023/matches

[2] Conn, D., Morresi, E., de Hoog, N., McMullan, L., Blight, G., & Voce, A. (2022, September 21). How the Champions League final descended into chaos – visual investigation. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/football/ng-interactive/2022/sep/21/liverpool-real-madrid-paris-stade-de-france-champions-league

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