Rugby World Cup final match report: New Zealand retain the Webb Ellis Cup with thrilling win over Australia

New Zealand 34 Australia 17

(Getty Images (Getty Images)

While Dan Carter, the New Zealand fly-half, savoured the sweet deliverance from three previous World Cups of painful frustration, with emotions that were easy to enjoy but impossible to quantify, it was left to his captain Richie McCaw to lift the little gold pot at the end of the All Blacks’ rainbow. By becoming the first team to win the World Cup for a third time, and the first to retain it too, they were confirmed as the greatest of the open era and possibly the best ever to play the Test game.

It had taken New Zealand 24 years to win their first two World Cups, which led to cruel but sometimes justified accusations that they were chokers. But this team of runners and enforcers from one to 15, with McCaw as its implacable, indomitable face, have shoved the jibes back down the critics’ throats. McCaw is now expected to retire and his next public duty may be to accept a knighthood where previously he had turned one down after his team’s 2011 final win.

That was on home soil in Auckland, as was the one in 1987 in the inaugural tournament. Here, the Antipodean takeover of Twickenham produced a classic conclusion to the eighth World Cup, thanks to the insistent quality of New Zealand’s attach and a raging, rousing Australian comeback during the second half that ought to merit some kind of asterisk in the history books. David Pocock and Tevita Kuridrani scored tries in the 53rd and 64th minutes, while New Zealand’s brilliant full-back Ben Smith was in the sin bin, and a lead of 21-3 was trimmed thrillingly to 21-17.

Then Carter took over, with a 40-metre dropped goal snapped from his left foot, and a penalty from 50 metres, give or take a gnat’s whisker. This was redemption, squared, for the man whose injuries ripped him out of both the embarrassing 2007 quarter-final exit, and the glory march four years later, after he’s been a young and peripheral figure in 2003. Beauden Barrett, the utility back introduced in a familiar tactical switch, finished it all with a lovely piece of footwork in a breakaway try made by Ben Smith’s quick-witted hoof downfield, after Kurtley Beale and Drew Mitchell had fumbled, forcing the pace. “I am very grateful to be where I am after what happened before,” said Carter, who has had injuries between World Cups too, while still establishing himself as the pre-eminent fly-half of his generation. “It’s a special feeling to be part of such a great team.”

The All Blacks were raging hot 6/5 favourites at the start of the tournament and the odds had shortened to 2/5 on by kick-off. A mere three losses in 54 Tests since they won the title in 2011 speaks for itself. These were the world’s number one and two ranked teams, but the gap between the pair is illustrated better by Australia now having lost 21 of the last 26 meetings. “Sometimes you come up against a better team,” said Stephen Moore, the Australia captain, “and that was happened to us tonight. They [New Zealand] deserve everything they get.” Moore and the Wallabies and everyone else among those who regard themselves as major rugby-playing nations have to spend the next four years leading to Japan in 2019 working out what the hell they can do about it.

Australia needed everything working smoothly if they were to launch their talented backs at the All Blacks but the line-out let them down badly, notably in the first half in two attacking positions – one ruined by a harsh penalty for leaning on, and the other blown with a horrendous overthrow by Moore. They had already been hurt by losing Kane Douglas injured and the lock forward was followed by the playmaker-in-chief, Matt Giteau, before the opening half-hour was out. The Aussie prep notes that had been supposedly accidentally leaked in photos from Friday’s training run had referred to rattling the All Blacks’ No.8 Kieran Read but it was mainly Carter on the end of a barrage of marginally late hits. Meanwhile, Giteau’s chin connected accidentally with Brodie Retallick’s shoulder and it left the Australian who had been brought back from exile in Toulon for this crack at the game’s biggest prize looking as if he had no idea what continent he was on.

When Giteau’s team-mates in gold came in to join him at half-time they had only bad news: a New Zealand lead of 16-3 achieved through three penalties by Carter to one from his opposite number Bernard Foley, and a crucial try in the 39th minute by Nehe Milner-Skudder. It capped a period of huge New Zealand fortune. Britain’s only representatives in the final, the referee Nigel Owens and touch judge Wayne Barnes, somehow missed a forward pass to Jerome Kaino in the run-up to Carter’s third penalty, and there was a case for obstruction involving Carter too, although Owens ruled Ma’a Nonu had not blocked a Wallaby tackler off. But Milner-Skudder’s score was a beauty. From a ruck in the Australia 22, a miss-pass beyond Dane Coles, and a clever pick-up and twist of the body by Conrad Smith allowed Aaron Smith and the eternally available McCaw to feed the rubber-limbed wing for his sixth try of the tournament (two behind the top scorer, another All Black Julian Savea). Carter, who would miss only one place kick, converted.

Within 108 seconds of the second half starting, the match looked as good as over. Nonu on a short run is terrifying enough. Set free by the substitute Sonny Bill Williams standing up three Wallabies in midfield, Nonu did a fair impression of a runaway train, and Kurtley Beale simply slid to the turf as the centre swept past him with a jagging sidestep, dreadlocks flying.

Australia’s obduracy did them great credit. When Drew Mitchell’s tip-tackled, albeit fairly tamely, by Ben Smith, the yellow-card penalty led to a line-out from which a perfect drive gave Pocock his try, converted by Bernard Foley. That was followed by Foley kicking long to the New Zealand 22, and Milner-Skudder’s clearance kick invited a counter from Beale. From a ruck near halfway, Will Genia chipped a kind of semi-box-kick towards the right touchline, Foley won the chase to it as Savea waited for the bounce, and Kuridrani galloped in from Foley’s inside pass.

The previous six finals had produced a meagre seven tries, so this was rich fare for a crowd, among whom a sizeable number occasionally showed their provenance with a chorus of ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’. But the All Blacks checked the fightback with a line-out steal quickly followed by Carter’s dropped goal, adjusting his feet to gain the optimal angle. A scrum penalty helped him make it 27-17 before Barrett’s joyous romp to the south goalline. Australia kept their pride but the overall task, as so often against these peerless opponents, was beyond them.

Teams

New Zealand: B Smith; N Milner-Skudder (B Barrett, 65), C Smith (SB Williams, 41), M Nonu, J Savea; D Carter, A Smith (T Kerr-Barlow, 71); J Moody (B Franks, 58), D Coles (K Mealamu, 65), O Franks (C Faumuina, 54), B Retallick, S Whitelock, J Kaino (V Vito, 71), R McCaw (capt), K Read.

Australia: I Folau; A Ashley-Cooper, T Kuridrani, M Giteau (K Beale, 27), D Mitchell (M Toomua, 66-71); B Foley, W Genia (N Phipps, 70); S Sio (J Slipper, 58), S Moore (capt; T Polota-Nau, 55), S Kepu (G Holmes, 58), K Douglas (D Mumm, 15), R Simmons, S Fardy (B McCalman, 60), M Hooper, D Pocock.

Referee: N Owens (Wales).