All Blacks No 8 Rodney So'oialo after the 2007 Rugby World Cup quarter-final. Photo / Brett Phibbs
The All Blacks were up 9-0 at halftime, thanks to a Michael Jones try. Appropriate, too, as Jones, en route to becoming one of the all-time great All Blacks, had also scored the opening try of the tournament against Italy on the same ground.
The French were outplayed, but hung on until two tries inacouple of minutes by captain David Kirk, then wing John Kirwan, after an unstoppable surge from the restart initiated by Kirk, killed them off.
Kirk lifted the Webb Ellis Cup to a home crowd, who no doubt assumed this would be the first of many such occasions. The All Blacks were worthy winners, their rugby and fitness levels being significantly better than the rest throughout the tournament.
An old-style scoreboard attendant would have earned a fair swag for his work during the World Cup final at Eden Park.
Just four times, he'd have reached for the white numbers painted on to the black boards to hang on the hooks.
All Blacks 8 France 7. The All Blacks opening the scoring with a skillfully worked lineout move which saw Tony Woodcock dive over. A familiar result to the pool game where the All Blacks won 37-17 looked on the cards. Back-up to the back-up first-five Aaron Cruden went down injured and Stephen Donald came on before halftime. He slotted a penalty after the break to put the All Blacks up 8-0 before French skipper Thierry Dusautoir scored a minute later. Game on.
The All Blacks held on with a stadium of four million holding their collective breaths as Andy Ellis kicked the ball out on fulltime to secure a second World Cup title. 24 years of waiting was over.
The day the All Blacks conceded 33 points in 27 minutes to turn a comfortable 24-10 lead toanumbing, shattering defeat.
With Jonah Lomu at his rampaging best, it seemed a foregone conclusion that the All Blacks were bound for the final. Then their guard dropped. After all, had they not walloped a disinterested France 54-7 in Wellington a few months earlier? But the boot of Christophe Lamaison turned the game round. Lamaison put over two dropped goals in two minutes, then kicked a couple of penalties and suddenly it was a two-point game.
The French spirits soared, they became men possessed and stormed the black barricades.
An All Black turnover enabled little Christophe Dominici to sprint clear and four minutes later stroppy centre Richard Dourthe crossed too.
When bearded wing Philippe Bernat-Salles beat Jeff Wilson to the ball for the fourth French try, the game was up. French joy knew no bounds. Tears flowed. There were claims French fingers did some dodgy handiwork in the close quarter stuff. Prop Franck Tournaire was one of those fingered, so to speak.
But the All Blacks were under orders: no retaliation, so they sat back. Current French coach Marc Lievremont will have fond memories. He played that day on the flank.
The worst World Cup result in eight tournaments. Again, it happened following impressive All Black results since the previous cup. Between November 2004 and June 2007, in five successive tests, the All Blacks knocked up 218 points to 41. So the quarter-final with a 61-10 win in Wellington four months earlier to bolster confidence should have been a foregone conclusion. Right? After all, the French were not in one of their golden periods.
The All Blacks led 13-3 at halftime. Does this sound familiar? But tries to Thierry Dusautoir, the current touring captain, and Yannick Jauzion edged France in front. The All Blacks played dumb rugby, eschewing dropped goal opportunities. They claimed referee Wayne Barnes diddled them in the second half, refereeing only one side. True a forward pass was missed, but bottom line: the scoreline.
The All Blacks may have thought themselves superior man to man, but once again, when it really mattered they had left their brains in the dressing room. To round it off, the coach who presided over that blackest All Black World Cup day was then reappointed.
Deja vu after their nightmare exit against the same side at the same stage of the tournament at the same stadium? Non, non, and non.
It was a rout, a record quarter-final score at a World Cup, a victory to make a mockery of all the doubt and angst surrounding the performance of the All Blacks in pool play.
The All Blacks didn't so much as break their shackles but smashed them to smithereens.
It was a clinical, ruthless performance and some of the handling was simply breathtaking. The All Blacks ran in 10 tries with Julian Savea scoring a hat-trick including a Lomu-like run that saw him bunt off several defenders.
AKA the test which produced the try dreams are made of. More significantly, after winning the first test in Christchurch 22-8, it clinched France's first series win in New Zealand.
Let's cut to the chase. The All Blacks led 20-16 with three minutes left. The game seemed to be up when wing Philippe Saint Andre gathered a deep kick near the French tryline. It went through eight more pairs of hands as the French pulled the All Black defence hither.
Hooker Jean-Michel Gonzalez to first five-eighth Christophe Deylaud, then big flanker Abdel Benazzi strode up the middle of the park.
Classy wing Emile N'tamack the first half tryscorer took up the charge, followed by top-class openside flanker Laurent Cabannes, Deylaud again, halfback Guy Accoceberry, who might have made it himself, and finally, thrillingly, fullback Jean-Luc Sadourny, who dived over for one of the game's most famous tries.
Put it up with Gareth Edwards for the Barbarians against the All Blacks, or Serge Blanco's semifinal clincher against the Aussies in Sydney at the World Cup in 1987 for starters.
Saint-Andre gave the try its place in folklore: It was acounter attack from the end of the world,'' he said.
Cute line, and it's stuck.
Bastille Day, and the French know their history.
So what better occasion for France to nab their historic first test win on New Zealand soil. And it was done with a fair bit of style too. They hadn't been given much chance, after getting turned over 12-11 by Southland between the two tests.
But tries by new halfback Jerome Gallion, first five eighth Alain Caussade, classy centre Didier Cordonious and wing Jean-Luc Averous did the trick. Up 24-10, they hung on before scenes of unbridled delight.
The Battles of Nantes, in which the French played as if men possessed, throwing themselves into the fray with a rare old passion.
The French had some tough men: No8Laurent Rodriguez, abrasive flanker Eric Champ, tighthead Jean-Pierre Garuet and the beautifully named Jean Condom.
Best remembered for No8 Wayne Shelford, in his second test, having his scrotum stitched up after a French boot found a soft target at a ruck. Hospital? Forget it. Hard man Shelford returned to the field before being concussed. The legend grew.
"I was knocked out cold, lost a few teeth and had a few stitches down below,'' he told the BBC. It's a game I still can't remember.'' The French got two second-half tries against an All Black side which finished with prop Kevin Boroevich at lock, a collection of walking wounded. It was one of the toughest test matches I have ever played,'' Shelford added, somewhat unnecessarily you'd think.
The French were Six Nations champions, ergo the All Blacks were in for a tough night at the Stade de France. So went the theory.
Simon Barnes, prominent sports writer for The Times, reckoned on the eve of the match that for once, the great, implacable, unstoppable All Blacks machine has made an error. Today, New Zealand must take on a half-decent rugby team''.
He went on about the All Blacks too often taking on weakened opposition or fielding what they called developmental sides. It increasingly seems that the All Blacks myth is justamite short of substance these days. And all the policy and planning and organisation seem to be designed to protect the myth . . . There is precious little that is exceptional about the present All Blacks, apart from the mystique.'' So 74,000 turned up to watch the champs give the visitorsaduffing. What followed was a five-try to nil flogging, with a couple of Freddie Michalak penalties the only response.
The All Blacks were outstanding; the French, a hail of whistles bearing down on them, were woeful. Then again, this was not a World Cup year. And after Barnes' handiwork tailor-made to be pinned up on the All Blacks' dressing room wall where did that leave the Six Nations champions then?
A heavy ground accompanied byagale blowing at about 140km/h. Ah, Wellington on a good day.
Yet the Hurricane'' test goes down as one of the All Blacks' most famous wins. Scoreless at halftime, with the goalposts swaying in the howling winds, France went ahead against the breeze with a fine try by wing Jean Dupuy 15 minutes from the end.
But the game turned on its head when flanker Kel Tremain charged down an attempted clearing kick by Claude Lacaze and scored out near the corner.
Step forward The Boot'', Don Clarke, but even the great match winner was deemed to have little hope of converting.
Clarke explained what happened next. "Believing the conversion was impossible, I simply kicked out along the 25 [22m line] and left the rest to the wind. To my astonishment it went over. I take no credit for that kick. It was a fluke,'' he told noted rugby writer Bob Howitt in New Zealand Rugby Greats.
The wind swung the ball at right angles to fly between the posts for perhaps the most improbable conversion in all test history.
Remembered as the test when the All Blacks got their skates on after losing the opening clash by five points at Toulouseaweek earlier.
Coach Jack Gleeson and captain Graham Mourie brought in a change of philosophy for Paris. Short lineouts were in, the game was to be played at pace. The French were run around the park.
The All Blacks were up 9-3 at the break. No8 Gary Seear hoofed over a long-range penalty, Brian McKechnie kicked a penalty, a dropped goal and a conversion, and wing Stu Wilson got the game's only try, chopping back inside to score near the posts.
Future test captain Andy Dalton chose a good day to make his test debut.
This game makes it into an elite group solely for one stunning moment. There was plenty of grubbiness on achilly day in Wellington and referee John Pring was working overtime to keep things, er, seemly.
After 28 minutes, France were awarded a penalty about 6m inside their own half 12m in from touch.
When fullback Pierre Villepreux lined up the shot at goal, laughter was heard ringing around the old stands. This, after all, was the man who had muffed an earlier effort from shorter range. The distance was estimated about 65m.
Guffaws turned to gawping as the ball not only sailed between the uprights but cleared the bar by a mile.
It remains one of the most famous long-range penalties, and is still up there among the longest.
Colin Meads won his 46th test cap that day, equalling the world record of Ireland's Jack Kyle.
No one remembers that; they do remember the booming boot of the French No 15.
Investigation reveals financial hurdles and resistance the star overcame to lead Moana.