Monday’s rugby news has the All Blacks winning the Rugby World Cup, Wallabies disappointed, South Africa claim 3rd position and Sonny Bill Williams hands off his World Cup medal.
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All Blacks Win WC
The All Blacks have become the first team to successfully defend a World Cup and the first team to have won three Rugby World Cups after they defeated the Wallabies 34-17 at Twickenham.
The Wallabies trailed by 21-3 but fought their way back to 21-17 before a Dan Carter masterclass brought home the All Blacks for a 17 point win.
All Blacks captain Ritchie McCaw was extremely proud and was unable to confirm his retirement from the game.
“I am going to enjoy today. How could you get enough of this. We will worry about that after today. I just want to enjoy having played a wonderful World Cup final here with a great bunch of men,” McCaw said.
“We played some damned good rugby there. We lost a bit of momentum in the second half, but we kept our composure. We came home strong which has been the mark of this team for the past four years”.
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Wallabies Disappointed
“It was obviously very painful to lose. We’ve had a great campaign and we wanted to continue that on,” Cheika said.
“When you look up see you haven’t done that it’s painful. You have got to eat it up … I have been very, very proud of the team. I really have.
“There is not much more I could have asked them to do. We came pretty close tonight. We swung the momentum back our way even though the ducks didn’t go our way. Bounce of the ball here or there or a call here or there, it could have been a little bit closer.
“We could have easily gone home then (trailing 21-3), everyone would have been happy, we had a good campaign, we could have easily said, okay we’re sweet with it. But the courage in the team that has been built and will help us going forward is they didn’t want to do that. They wanted to stay in the battle and they did.”
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South Africa Claim 3rd
South Africa have won the bronze medal playoff against Argentina 24-13 at the Olympic Stadium in London.
Handre Pollard kicked four penalty goals to help South Africa confirm their 3rd place position over an injury hit Argentinian side.
The Springboks outscored the Pumas two tries to one with tries to Eben Etzebeth and J.P Pietersen whilst the Pumas scored through Juan Pablo Orlandi.
Bryan Habana was unable to go past Jonah Lomu’s try scoring record of 15 World Cup tries and he missed several chances to score.
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Sonny Bill’s Offload
Sonny Bill Williams has given away his Rugby World Cup medal to an unsuspected kid who ran onto the field after the All Blacks defeated the Wallabies.
The kid was tackled by security but before Williams helped him up and gave him a hug.
“Just before he came to give me a hug he got smoked by one of the security guards and I felt pretty sorry for him you know,” Williams said.
“If that was a younger brother or cousin I would have given the security guard a hiding you know. But I just picked the kid up and took him back to his old lady and tried to make the night more memorable for him. Better (for the medal) to be hanging around his neck than mine.”
Williams made a significant impact after coming on for Conrad Smith at half time, setting up a try for Ma’a Nonu.
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