Pick your wonder. There were lots to choose from in one of the most complete performances of modern sporting times, but the sadistic trilogy of Julian Savea was a one-man epic.
He dropped jaws and opened his own eyes in the World Cup dismantling of the French rugby psyche. In the basement of the Millennium Stadium on Saturday, the wing then said that he and his team can improve on a record winning margin for the knockout stage. It is some thought, given that New Zealand have already redefined the north-south chasm.
England, Wales, Ireland and, of course, France are simply light years away from being able to match the pace, execution and instinct of this team on a consistent basis. It is back to the drawing board and the drop-in centre for teams with low self-esteem. “Powerless” and “impotence” were accurate words used by Thierry Dusautoir, the France captain.
“There’s always improvement,” Savea said less poetically. “That’s what gets us excited — seeing tonight and knowing we can improve is an eye-opener. Well, it gets me excited anyway.”
Eyeballs popped as Savea did his wrecking-ball schtick. Try one: Dan Carter produced a pass that should really have been frozen, put in a glass case and stuck on Savea’s mantelpiece. He could not miss. Try two: this conjured up memories of Jonah Lomu performing West Side Story on England midriffs in 1995 as Savea bounced three players to the floor. “I just reacted to what I saw in front of me,” he said. “And they were in my way.” Try three: the ball was turned over and Savea showed the sort of raw pace and muscular athleticism that were reminiscent of prime-time Usain Bolt.
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He now faces Bryan Habana in the semi-finals. After English Twitter spats, there were Twitter hugs on Saturday. The Springbok, whose hat-trick against the United States means that he now shares Lomu’s World Cup record of 15 tries, immediately offered his congratulations. Savea responded with “mad respect for you”.
“I’ve always watched him since I was a youngster,” he added. “Oh, he’s a legend in my eyes.” And Lomu? “No one can come close to Jonah. He was one in a million.”
Last year Steve Hansen, the All Blacks head coach not known for singling out players, said that Savea was “probably better” than Lomu. Laurie Mains, the All Blacks coach who introduced Lomu to world fame, says that Savea is more complete.
Savea’s triptych takes him past Lomu in terms of international tries. He has 38 to Lomu’s 37. Habana has 64, second only to Daisuke Ohata, of Japan, but it is the strike-rate that is most telling. Habana has scored 0.56 tries per cap, Lomu 0.58; no world great comes close to Savea’s rate of 0.97.
Hope for the Springboks? France were never going to repeat their 2007 win in Cardiff, but had moments when they looked good going forward, notably through Wesley Fofana and Scott Spedding.
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Morgan Parra missed a routine penalty attempt that would have made it 10-9 after 17 minutes. The gap was only 11 after 29 minutes. France were the better team at the start of the second half until Louis Picamoles got himself sent to the sin-bin for what the officials deemed “a push with a clenched fist”. They lacked all semblance of punch thereafter.
Philippe Saint-Andre now departs France, as planned, after a reign of ineptitude and a whim-loss record of 20 victories from 45 games. “I would rather be applauded than booed,” he said of his reception from the large French following.
More telling were the remarks of Graham Henry, head coach when the All Blacks beat France in the 2011 final. He says that Top 14 players are badly coached and overpaid, citing the foreign imports as another contributory factor to the malaise.
Carter and Ma’a Nonu are heading to France after the World Cup. France will love Carter, who gave an insight into why the All Blacks are so good. The peerless schools system, a national obsession and children who are taught to be competitive mean players arrive at elite level with rare instinct. So, after platitudes about hard work, Carter said: “But a lot of it is about playing what you see and backing your instincts.
“You’ve done the prep, so you need the confidence to go out and play; you’re not overthinking which we probably did in previous games; we were trying to stick to the game plan before and trying to remember moves.”
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For the record, Brodie Retallick opened the scoring by charging down a Frédéric Michalak kick. The fly half limped off and into international retirement. Nehe Milner-Skudder side-stepped a stadium for the second try. Savea scored twice, either side of Picamoles’s bulldozing effort, and it was 29-13 at the break.
Cue carnage. Jerôme Kaino, Savea again and Kieran Read went over, as offloads drew gushing applause, and then Tawera Kerr-Barlow trotted on for Aaron Smith and, within five minutes, had two tries.
Carter said the All Blacks had been experimenting during the pool games. “This was our final.” There may be two more to come. Watch and wonder.
Scorers: New Zealand. Tries: Retallick (11min), Milner-Skudder (23), Savea 3 (29, 38, 59), Kaino (50), Read (65), Kerr-Barlow 2 (68, 71). Conversions: Carter 7. Penalty goal: Carter (7). France: Tries: Picamoles (36). Conversion: Parra. Penalty goals: Spedding (9), Parra (15).
Scoring sequence (New Zealand first) 3-0, 3-3, 10-3, 10-6, 17-6, 24-6, 24-13, 29-13 (half-time), 34-13, 41-13, 48-13, 55-13, 62-13.
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New Zealand: Tries: B Smith; N Milner-Skudder (rep: B Barrett, 40), C Smith (rep: S B Williams, 52), M Nonu, J Savea; D Carter, A Smith (rep: T Kerr-Barlow, 65); W Crockett, D Coles (rep: K Mealamu, 60), O Franks (rep: C Faumuina, 51) B Retallick, S Whitelock, J Kaino (rep: V Vito, 65), R McCaw (rep: S Cane, 69), K Read.
France: S Spedding; N Nakaitaci, A Dumoulin (rep: M Bastareaud, 61), W Fofana, B Dulin; F Michalak (rep: R Tales, 12), M Parra (rep: R Kockott, 68); E Ben Arous (rep: V Debaty, 61) G Guirado (rep: D Szarzewski, 57) R Slimani (rep: N Mas, 61), P Papé (rep: Y Nyanga, 48), Y Maestri, T Dusautoir, B Le Roux, L Picamoles (rep: D Chouly, 72).
Referee: N Owens (Wales). Attendance: 71,619