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When your favorite team wins the biggest prize in the game after 24 years of hard luck and near-tragedy you're supposed to rejoice, get smashed, and bask in the knowledge that at least once in your lifetime the universe gets it right.
You're not supposed to be sitting there wondering why you're less happy than you thought you would be. What is wrong with you?
The All Blacks of New Zealand have just won the Rugby World Cup they have long deserved, defeating Les Bleus of France. The final was so tense that in the last 40 minutes the sinking feeling in your stomach made its way to your soles, anchoring you to the floor like a pillar of dread. You thought the All Blacks were going to lose the World Cup again, and even after the horn had sounded to confirm that they’d hung on by the skin of their bleeding teeth, you’re not entirely convinced that they won.
There's been a mistake, but what?
1. The All Blacks are the finest rugby team on earth. They are legend.
1.1. Individually they are the best players in the game; collectively they define "awesome".
1.2. The fact that they've won the RWC only once is considered a freak of Fate and an outright injustice.
1.3. Rugby is a kind of religion in New Zealand, a lush, pristine land with fewer people in it than Megamall during a weekend sale. The All Blacks were playing at home and determined to erase painful memories.
1.3.1. In Peter Jackson's adaptation of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings New Zealand played Middle Earth. The Rugby World Cup's Webb Ellis trophy IS the precioussss.
1.4. Insofar as rugby may be said to have a platonic ideal, the All Blacks are it.
1.5. This space reserved for supporters of other teams who disagree with the above.
2. At the RWC in New Zealand no team could stand up to the hosts.
2.1. The All Blacks are the only team who have not lost a game.
2.2. They have been famously unlucky in their encounters with France, which knocked them out of two World Cups. This so-called jinx was apparently over by the pool round, when the Blacks demolished the Blues comprehensively.
2.3. The Wallabies of Australia were considered their arch-enemy. The semifinal between Australia and New Zealand was regarded by many as the de facto final.
2.3.1. The coach of the Wallabies is from New Zealand and would've coached the All Blacks if management had not chosen to keep the current coach.
2.3.2. The star fly half of the Wallabies is from New Zealand, which endears him even less to the population of New Zealand.
2.3.2.1. The actor Russell Crowe is from New Zealand. In his Gladiator days he might have been mistaken for one of the smaller All Blacks; today he resembles your grandmother’s aparador.
2.3.2.2. The biggest international pop hit from NZ was by Crowded House, and for the benefit of your Last Song Syndrome it goes: “Hey now, hey no-ow, don’t dream it’s oo-ver.” It came out in 1987, the year the All Blacks won the World Cup for the first and only time.
2.3.3. The All Blacks defeated the Wallabies in a display of brutal beauty. Any Aussie player who got his hands on the ball promptly found himself flattened against a solid wall of All Blacks, which resembles nothing so much as a solid wall.
3. In the final New Zealand was facing France.
3.1. On one hand the All Blacks had been unlucky against Les Bleus.
3.2. On the other hand New Zealand’s opponent in its 1987 World Cup final victory was France.
3.2.1. Whom they had beaten in the pool rounds a couple of weeks earlier.
3.3. The French team had been behaving in a manner we can only describe as “French”.
3.3.1. The coach had been squabbling with his players, apparently a tradition of French teams in international tests.
3.3.2. The best that could be said of their performance at the RWC up to the final was that they had been “consistently inconsistent”.
3.3.2.1. We suspect that they do this on purpose because it is so. . .French.
3.3.2.2. Often, especially in their losses to NZ and Tonga in the pool rounds, they played as if they were reading Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus on the pitch.
3.3.2.2.1. It is not true that Albert Camus was the goalie of the Algerian football team.
3.3.3. The problem with unpredictability is that one cannot prepare for it.
3.4. France was widely regarded as an undeserving finalist.
3.4.1. They had beaten Wales by just one point in their semifinal, despite Wales playing with only 14 men.
3.4.2. In the 18th minute the Welsh captain had been sent out of the match for making a dangerous tackle.
3.4.2.1. He had turned a French player upside down and then dropped him. Given the standard of officiating at that point, many believe he should’ve been punished with a yellow card—temporary banishment from the match.
3.4.2.2. The Welsh captain, who had had an exemplary tournament, was shown the red card, banishing him permanently from the pitch.
3.4.2.3. Though an Irish national, the referee had a French name and spoke French. He is not likely to be planning a Welsh vacation for some time.
3.4.3. The 14 men of Wales carried on valiantly but missed crucial opportunities. France could only beat them by one point, all their points coming from penalties.
3.4.4. So France had been painted the villain of the piece, the obstacle standing between the All Blacks and Destiny. France makes a great contravida.
3.4.4.1. "What does it matter?" Smoke three cigarettes in one hand while gesticulating furiously. "What is le destin? Merde! We live in an indifferent universe.”
3.4.4.2. Some pundits predicted a blowout in the final.
4. Nothing is predictable. Stats will not help you.
4.1. Having been written off as sure losers, the French—especially their captain—played magnificently in the final.
4.2. The mighty All Blacks appeared to be paralyzed. The preciousss was so close they only had to reach for it. They almost choked.
4.3. Facing the spectre of another World Cup defeat, the All Blacks did what they had to do. They won ugly. They ran down the clock. No style, no elegance, just brute efficiency.
4.4. In previous World Cups the referees had been accused of bias towards the French. The accusation does not apply in this instance.
4.5. The All Blacks lost their replacement for their replacement fly half to injury (This has been a terrible tournament for fly halves), forcing them to field an untried player in that crucial position.
4.6. That player we’d never seen before in this World Cup kicked in the penalty that kept the All Blacks in the lead. It provided a cushion even after the French captain scored a try that was converted.
4.7. The All Blacks then clung desperately to that one-point cushion until the final horn.
4.8. In case you are into symmetry: The French got into the final by one point. They lost the final by one point.
5. How do you explain this to yourself?
5.1. That the All Blacks won by a single point despite having been the second best team on the pitch for 40 minutes means that luck was on their side.
5.1.1. As they had been the victims of bad luck in past World Cups, their luck had evened out.
5.1.2. Ergo the cosmos is essentially fair and just.
5.2. In a perfect world the player or team with the beautiful game should win. However, given the state of this world, we’ll have to settle for the win.
5.2.1. Tennis fans call this the Roger Federer argument.
5.3. Bottom line: The French deserved to win the match but the All Blacks were the best team overall. They were solid throughout the World Cup and deserve to hoist the trophy.
5.3.1. How often in real life does the best man/team actually win?
5.3.2. This is sort of like Martin Scorsese being denied the Oscar for Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas, and finally bagging it for a minor work, The Departed.
5.4. The cosmos is fundamentally just.
5.5. The cosmos is fundamentally unjust.
5.6. The cosmos does not care.
5.6.1. This should make the French even more ... French.
5.7. Your favorite team just won the Rugby World Cup. You can decide to be happy.
5.8. So what if life is random? The result is not bad at all.
