Five final thoughts of RWC 2015

Worthy champions

Early in the second half they had to endure a shaky 10-minute spell as Australia made their extra man advantage count, but apart from that, New Zealand barely put a foot wrong en route to becoming the first team to retain the World Cup and the first to lift the Webb Ellis Cup three times.

Dan Carter was the only choice for Man of the Match on a Hollywood-scripted farewell thanks to a 19-point haul which included a genius of a drop goal from 40 metres out in the 70th minute. But the play that neatly summed up the difference between these outstanding All Blacks and everyone else came in the final minute when possession was turned over in the New Zealand 22.

Full-back Ben Smith could easily have just hoofed the ball into the crowd with the game all but won, yet instead launched a counter-attack which produced a converted try under the posts for replacement Beauden Barrett.

You can have all the pace, fitness and technical expertise going but it’s nothing without ambition, heart and desire, valuable commodities the All Blacks also have in spades.

The good

Where to start? With the fact that this has comfortably been the most competitive tournament yet thanks to the so-called Tier Two nations making such considerable advances.

Money invested by World Rugby in development programmes, quality coaches as well as high performance competitions has paid rich dividends in many areas.

The result has been a long series of exciting matches and several memorable upsets, most notably Japan over turning South Africa, that have been lapped up by record crowds and a global TV audience which has helped generate an estimated profit of Dh900 million. Oh, and the English and Welsh weather cooperated brilliantly for the great majority of the time.

The bar has been set very high indeed for Japan 2019.

The bad

Not much apart from expensive ticket prices which, to be fair, still flew out of the box office and a long list of serious injuries.

Worldwide playing numbers, already on the rise, appear set to increase thanks to the successes of RWC 2015 while the exposure from rugby sevens returning to next year’s Rio de Janeiro Olympics will surely only further grow the rugby population.

But injuries will be of concern, most notably to parents of youngsters eager for a first taste of the sport.

And were sides such as Wales and Ireland just supremely unlucky to be so hard hit while rivals including New Zealand and Australia escaped relatively lightly? Or are players from the Southern Hemisphere better conditioned to withstand the rigours of rugby at the highest level?

The ugly

Two weeks on and the treatment of referee Craig Joubert by World Rugby for a controversial call in the Australia-Scotland quarter-final still leaves an extremely bad taste.

The South Africa official was humiliated by the ruling body who basically hung him out to dry after publicly judging that he wrongly awarded a penalty which the Wallabies kicked to win the game.

Nothing has been seen or heard of Joubert since he raced off the pitch without any of the customary handshaking, and one does start to wonder whether the officiating career of, by all accounts, an honest, decent and passionate rugby man can ever recover.

If that’s the case – and I sincerely hope it is not – then shame on World Rugby and for setting a precedent which does the sport – and referees everywhere – absolutely no favours at all.

Fingers crossed

It’s crucial, amid all the back-slapping and congratulatory fanfare, for World Rugby to keep up the good work of the last four years and make this showcase tournament even more competitive by the time 2019 comes around.

While Japan, Georgia and Fiji have made notable progress, there has to be concern about the health of Italian rugby while Samoa and Tonga were similarly disappointing on the big stage.

Regular meetings with the likes of New Zealand and Australia have transformed Argentina and it seems obvious that the sport in the Pacific Islands would benefit from a similar approach as well as sympathetic administration to keep rugby high on the sporting agenda there and head off any player drain to league or other sports.

In Europe too, let’s see some imagination in the form of a second division for the Six Nations to encourage the likes of Georgia, Romania and Russia. What’s the worst thing that could happen? That the established order gets a shake up and that rugby reaches new markets and becomes even more popular?

- The author is a rugby expert based in the UK.