View photosKEY POINTS:
Chokers. It's such an ugly, over-used word and one that has been applied with some regularity to the All Blacks over the past 20 years.
It's degrading, often unnecessary and utterly patronising to the opposition.
Obviously I am writing this as another All Blacks World Cup campaign has come to a calamitous end. The only thing that disappoints me, however, is when I look for a word to sum up the All Blacks in Cardiff the only one that springs to mind is that 'ch' word.
Yes, the French played outstandingly but let's not pretend they have suddenly become a better side than the All Blacks. All they've become is a smarter one.
A colleague and I had the almost surreal experience of watching the test in a bar in the south of France. We calculated that in all likelihood the All Blacks would survive until the semifinals at least so we should cover the two quarterfinals in Marseille while the rest of the team was on ABs watch.
It was a reasonable, if flawed, assumption to make given that the All Blacks had never failed to progress beyond the quarterfinals before.
The locals, with just a smattering of foreigners (who with a couple of exceptions were all cheering for France anyway), were well fired up at the start of the match but that quickly receded as the All Blacks went ahead.
At 13-0 the mood wasn't funereal but it wasn't bon vivant either.
Then a strange thing happened. The All Blacks began unravelling. From a position of no danger they started giving away penalties and trying stuff that might have looked good against Portugal but was an invitation to disaster. The mood lifted as France nailed the last points of the half to trail 3-13 at the break.
Richie McCaw would later say the side felt they have been sucked into a game of "aerial ping-pong" and needed to impose their style of play.
I'm reluctant to condemn comments made in the bitter aftermath of defeat but surely the point was that the aerial ping-pong was posing no danger to New Zealand.
At 13-0 up keep kicking the ball back to them, they had picked a side with few threats from deep so were in effect shooting themselves with their feet.
By trying to play the 'All Black way' New Zealand gave France the oxygen of hope. That was all they needed.
It was all they needed to party the night away here in Aix-en-Provence too.
It was a sensational atmosphere as my colleague and I wandered our way back to our hotel on the outskirts of town (what taxis there are in this town wouldn't have had a hope of getting through the cars circling the main roundabout in town honking and flashing lights).
It was quite nice to be in a place where the victory was so appreciated.
That might sound horribly disloyal but it is the way it goes. If you do this job for any length of time you get dispassionate about the teams you cover.
Those I feel sorry for are the people that paid hard-earned money to have the trip of a lifetime. Many tours started only in Cardiff. That must be tough to take.
But it is sport and in sport there is usually a winner and a loser. New Zealand has had its share of losses.
If they can just shake they constricting feeling rounds there necks every time they're put under pressure in a World Cup, then maybe next time they'll be winners.
