Congrats to the AB's for a tough fought victory. It's a pity that the win was marred by some very ordinary decisions by Joubert. The ones that stick in my mind are firstly, the AB's try. Watching that in slow-mo you can see the first frog jumper being lifted out of the way (a lifter is shoved back) then the kiwi forwards set an illegal screen including pushing back one of the french crew to prevent him getting into position and on the other side Mc Caw holding back 2 french players from the rear of the lineout. Kudos for a very clever tactic but at least 4 infringements as part of the package. Secondly, in that last 30 mins it is blatantly obvious that Joubert kept putting his whistle back in his pocket (out of fear - who knows ?) when the ABs were infinging at the breakdown. Overall I'm glad the kiwi's won it as I couldn't stand the national mourning that would have raged among our southern cousins if a loss had occured but I gotta say, on the day, the French were a better side. The McCaw 'eye-gouging' incident....at the time I saw the French pack getting tired of all the ball smothering / clawing by McCaw and gave him a few feet full of sprigs (good old fashioned rucking) to wise him up a bit.
I don't think it's sour grapes to hold such an opinion. It's merely my opinion. What I really hope is that Paddy Obrien and other tournament officials are forced to do an honest evaluation of the quality of refereeing overall and figure out how to improve the standard. In today's world of high quality camera work, slow-mo replays etc, bad decisions are becoming increasingly obvious. Enough already with the " performance of match officials is excellent" baseless blurtings from O'Brien. Some referees like Bryce Lawrence need to be sent back to schoolboy rugby.
Enjoy the win southern cousins, there's a big job in 4 years to keep a mob of northern hemisphere pretenders hands of the cup!