The Vent with Tony Veitch Ep26: Best grand final ever, France or Ireland?

France or Ireland will face the All Blacks in the Rugby World Cup quarter-finals. Photos / AP

Would the All Blacks rather face Ireland or France in the quarters? Was that the best grand final ever? Does NRL need to ditch golden point for grand finals?

In today's episode of The Vent, Tony Veitch is joined by Michael Guerin to discuss the main talking points from a fantastic sporting weekend.

Magnificent matches

Tony Veitch: I'm very reluctant to get into a code war but we had two magnificent matches, Australia vs England, that result was amazing for all sorts of reasons and last night's grand final was one of the greatest games of rugby league I've ever seen.

Michael Guerin: What about the poor Wallabies? They produce the rugby game of the last four years and yet nobody in Australia cares this morning. Jonathan Thurston has been elevated to this God-like status and the crazy thing is, he isn't the guy who won them the game. Michael Morgan produced a Sonny Bill-like back-load. He won them the game and nobody cares. Everyone wants to talk about JT.

Veitch: Everybody wanted Jonathan Thurston to do that, the magic.

Guerin: The commiseration he had for the Broncos players...he's a class act. He's the antithesis of Andrew Johns in the airport.

Golden point or a full replay?

Veitch: Wayne Bennett has come out and said 'You know what, we all should have come back next week...golden point is not fair'. Before people say of course Bennett is going to say that, Bennett has been consistent from day one that he doesn't like golden point. It wouldn't work.

Guerin: It's ridiculous. There has to be a winner and a loser. It's like the penalty situation is soccer, people say 'we can do it better'. You can't play for ever. At some stage someone has to win and somebody won last night.

Veitch: Imagine how flat we'd be this morning if we didn't have a result last night. You want a result.

Best grand final ever?

Guerin: Was it the best league game you've ever seen?

Veitch: For me, yes. I'd put it up there with the '89 grand final in terms of pure drama. That last night was just sporting magic.

All Blacks quarter-final opponent

Veitch: This time next week we'll know, France or Ireland in the quarter-final as far as the All Blacks are concerned.

Guerin: I want Ireland. Ireland were poor this morning and we know France can beat us but Ireland have never beaten us, so why wouldn't we take Ireland.

Veitch: If we get France then we just get rid of everything that happened in '07.

Guerin: We did that in 2011, we got over the France hoodoo type thing. I want Ireland but here's the funny thing, France might want us because they're the bunnies for Argentina. I think France would be happy to face the All Blacks.