Ci-dessous l'article quasi-intégral du Guardian à propos de cette finale de coupe du monde de rugby 2011
"They say that France lost the final of the 2011 Rugby World Cup, but we don't have to believe it if we don't want to. With everything stacked against them, they produced the performance that gave the tournament a most memorable climax.
All New Zealand did was win, which was presumably all they wanted to do in order to end their famous 24-year drought. They had hosted the tournament beautifully but when it came to the showdown they derived disproportionate benefit from home advantage, including a few free gifts from a referee who spent the first half infuriating even neutrals by giving virtually every decision to the men in black.
France's fans were unable to make themselves heard in a stadium draped in black but their team's display was full of spirit, generosity, creativity and adventure. Perhaps this was not the best France squad of all time, or anything like it, but they did full honour to the memory and traditions of their forebears and were hugely unfortunate not to become the first side from their nation to capture the Webb Ellis Cup.
The All Blacks were grim, pragmatic and joyless: a caricature of a stereotype. Nothing they did in the 80 minutes truly illuminated the game. Their try was a gimme, tinged with a hint of obstruction, and they never came close to scoring another. Their defence was impressive enough as France grew in self-belief during the second period but it would have been welcome, given the circumstances, had they felt able to take on France at a game of rugby involving more than the arts of attrition.
They could point out that they lost Dan Carter, their principal source of invention, before the tournament had got properly under way. But this is a nation of 4.3 million people obsessed by the game, and the absence of one player should not have caused them to go quite so resolutely into their shells on the big night. They appeared to be paralysed by fear of the consequences of another 1999 or 2007.
(...)
If New Zealand won the right to call themselves world champions for the next four years, France resurrected a reputation grievously – but not, as it turned out, irreparably – damaged by the events of recent weeks. With four minutes left, Marc Lièvremont gave us one last bizarre decision by which to remember him: the replacement of Dimitri Yachvili, a normally dead-eyed kicker, by a player with zero caps at a time when a drop goal would have won the World Cup and changed rugby history. Yachvili was tiring, but still looked exasperated as he left the pitch.
On balance, however, Lièvremont's players assembled a performance that ensured they will be able to hold their heads up on their return home. This was not to be compared with the limp effort of Jacques Fouroux's side – including Serge Blanco, Philippe Sella, Pierre Berbizier, Daniel Dubroca and Pascal Ondarts – while losing 29-9 against the same opposition in the 1987 final. There was nothing anticlimactic about this return to Eden Park. At the end of a campaign in which he was endlessly ridiculed and vilified, Lièvremont could say that he had taken his squad closer to the title than any of his his predecessors.
"I'm tremendously sad but tremendously proud, too," he said during a dignified post-match press conference. He made no reference to the collision between Richie McCaw's knee and the temple of Morgan Parra in the 11th minute, which forced the early removal of France's own influential fly-half.
In many ways, even in defeat, this was the French at their best, slowly swelling in confidence through the first half and practically bursting with defiance in the later stages as they refused to accept the general assumption of their opponents' superiority.
The way they responded to the haka, with a novel formula devised in their hotel yesterday morning, provided the night's first drama. Forming up in an arrowhead inside their own half, with their captain at the tip, they waited until Piri Weepu was halfway through leading the All Blacks' performance before beginning a slow advance towards the halfway line and eventually, in contravention of the established protocol, a few yards across it.
In everything they subsequently did they were bold, they were brave, and they were nobody's idea of losers, even when the winners were queueing up to receive their medals. They were France, recalled to life, and you had to love them for it."
Et aussi, dans cet article :
"The team that had made no concession to the pragmatism of a knockout tournament finally succumbed and the New Zealand All Blacks staggered, mauling, tackling and grinding, to their first victory at the World Cup since 1987. They did it the ugly way, but they won.
France, misunderstood, incomprehensible, were magnificent, dominating the second half, forcing the All Blacks to dig into the deepest reserves of their rugby obsession. They had a chance to win it, but François Trinh-Duc, a key player in their campaign of chaos, missed with a long penalty attempt with 17 minutes to go.
All suspicions of a one-sided embarrassment vanished in the opening period. France played with an adventure verging on abandon, wonderment at their transformation only tempered by the clout to the head of Morgan Parra from the knee of Richie McCaw. The makeshift – for the purposes of this World Cup – fly-half gave way to Trinh-Duc, and while he was away New Zealand scored from a lineout, Jerome Kaino winning at the tail and dropping the ball back inside, on a pre-planned move, to the prop Tony Woodcock.
It was a cruel tale of those that seized the day and those that failed. Piri Weepu, who had held the All Blacks together after the injury to Dan Carter, left the field a sorry figure, way off target with his kicking and the perpetrator of the mistake that turned the second half France's way. The scrum-half's careless little kick off the floor presented Trinh-Duc with a free gift and half a minute later the utterly brilliant Thierry Dusautoir was crossing for France's try.
New Zealand did not only have a problem at scrum-half, but at No10 too. Aaron Cruden, the stand-in for the stand-in for Dan Carter, went off with an injured knee and Stephen Donald, the last outside-half standing in the host nation, came on … and kicked the penalty that gave the All Blacks the one-point advantage that saved their day.
It was a extraordinary match, New Zealand the devotees of attack, forced to defend for all their worth. This was a victory built on desperation, the forwards working on zero possession but inspired by the spirit of a nation that willed them to win. France lost, but how much they regained in dignity and courage.
France remain without a world title from three finals. New Zealand have won their second title in their third final, by the skin of their teeth. Ugly tournament rugby won the day; New Zealand won the final. It was all that counted."
