World Cup review: 'Get-rid' kicking, suffocating blitz defence and huge breakdown collisions cannot be rugby's future

Every single knockout game at the Rugby World Cup was won, statistically, by teams who spent less time with ball in hand than their opponents.

CHILD'S PLAY: South Africa’s Mbonambi family celebrates their final success.

It was Andy Farrell who best summed up the 2023 Rugby World Cup. 

“Sport can be cruel sometimes – I guess that’s why we love it,” Ireland’s head coach said after his team’s heartbreaking defeat by New Zealand in the quarter-finals. Which is precisely how every All Black squad member felt on Saturday evening as dazzling laser beams, coloured lights and fireworks turned the Stade de France into the planet’s dampest nightclub and South Africa’s ecstatic players danced their way into Springbok folklore.