All Blacks No 8 Rodney So'oialo after the 2007 Rugby World Cup quarter-final between New Zealand and France at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. Photo / Brett Phibbs
It is that scene in a thousand horror movies: the teens approach the door at the top of the stairs. Something is waiting for them in the cellar below. Some magnetic, irresistible force is drawing them closer. They turn the handle, take that first step into the darkness and descend into...
... Cardiff.
The All Blacks are at the door again, Millennium Stadium is the cellar. Waiting below, almost inevitably, could be France.
But that is all to come. This is the sequel. Before we get to that, we need to pay homage to the original.
The buses are wending its way through London's suburbs. Hammersmith and Chiswick disappear out of the right-hand windows as the A4 turns into the M4.
Heathrow soon appears on the left. Everyone on the bus has a Heathrow story: the queues, the wilfully unfriendly staff, the contrasting sense of excitement and isolation the first time you enter the arrivals hall and realise the Big OE is no longer just a concept.
London is sprawling, it is enthralling; it is both a destination and a gateway to Europe. It can grab you in a warm embrace and leave you bitterly cold. It is easy to feel a sense of disorientation when you're 18,000km from childhood friends and family. Every now and then you need a connection -a reminder of who you are and where you're from.
It is often the All Blacks who provide that sense of community.
It's why there would be dawn queues around the block at the long-gone-and-unlamented Shepherd's Bush Walkabout whenever there was a Bledisloe Cup test on the big screen. Snakebites would be sunk from plastic cups, weekends would be lost in a drunken fug.
It is also why co-founder of the Beige Brigade Mike Lane didn't even have to try that hard to fill 10 buses with 500 Kiwis for the quarter-final against France. At £149 for a return trip and a match ticket, he had to turn people away.
Many of his punters, he notes as they gather at Paddington Station on that fateful Saturday, have pre-loaded. Many of them, he will note as another plane kisses the tarmac at Heathrow, are on more than alcohol.
"Could be an interesting day," he thinks.
Cam McMillan has made his own way to Cardiff along the M4 busy with an endless of vans decked out with All Black flags and banners.
There are no nerves. A week of leave has been taken and he will spend the days between the quarter- and semifinal touring war sites and historic towns in northern France. History and rugby - two great loves conveniently meshing.
"I had this idea that the All Blacks would vanquish the past three nations that had ended our World Cup hopes in 1995, 1999 and 2003 - France in the quarters, Australia in the semis then the Boks in the final," McMillan, now the nzherald.co.nz sports editor, recalls.
"France were the least of my fears."
He has grounds for optimism. In the years since the 31-43 horror show at the 1999 World Cup semifinal, the All Blacks have played the French 11 times, winning nine and drawing one. They have scored 417 points while conceding 177. It is, on paper, a significant mismatch.
McMillan and his mates settle into the Prince of Wales pub, a five-minute walk from Millennium Stadium, already packed to the gunwales with black shirts and mangled vowels. The TVs are tuned to Stade Velodrome in Marseille where Australia's scrum is on roller-skates and they are, almost unbelievably, defeated by a defiantly ordinary England team.
"There was no way we were going to lose to England in Paris, and since I had tickets to that game I was on top of the world,' McMillan said.
As they poured out of the pub a lone woman in a Wallaby jersey walked past. "Four more years, four more years," the Kiwis taunt her.
I, the author, settle in at an establishment on the edge of the old town centre of Aix-en-Provence, having spent the day in the hardscrabble port city of Marseille, writing smugly of England's scrum-induced asphyxiation of the Wallabies.
Now it was time to enjoy a couple of Kronenbourgs and soak up the atmosphere.
The locals, mainly students it seems, start off as a singing mass but the All Black machine soon grinds their enthusiasm down to a mild hubbub.
Serge Betsen, the abrasive French blindside flanker in knocked out and replaced by Imanol Harinordoquy.
"To my mind that makes their loosies a much more potent mix," McCaw tells Greg McGee, his ghostwriter in the best-selling biography The Open Side*. "Harinordoquy goes to No 8 and gives them another big option at lineout, Julien Bonnaire switches to the blindside and, crucially, forces Thierry Dusautoir to play openside."
Even with that formidable combination, there is no sign that the All Blacks will be overly taxed.
Conrad Smith talks to Tony Veitch after the 2007 Rugby World Cup
The All Blacks are leading 3-0 when Sitiveni Sivivatu takes a quick throw and Leon MacDonald counter-attacks. From a ruck, Dan Carter drifts and finds a hole-running Luke McAlister. David Marty and Yannick Jauzion miss him and Dusautoir can't get there in time.
The 10-0 lead would soon become 13-0, but the All Blacks take some bad options that allow France to peg back three points before the break.
As the All Blacks wait to re-enter the fray, Kelleher, who has already endured two crushing defeats in World Cup knockout matches - he was controversially picked to start the 1999 semifinal against France ahead of Justin Marshall and replaced the same player in the 2003 loss to Australia, being famously taunted by George Gregan - pipes up.
"Come on guys, this is starting to feel like '99."
"I watch the whole second half sunken in my seat with a dreaded sense that the All Blacks weren't going to win," McMillan said.
His pessimism is not unfounded. It has been a curious half-hour.
Referee Wayne Barnes has been conned by Lionel Beauxis into sinbinning McAlister. Dusautoir and Rodney So'oialo swap tries but McAlister, kicking in place of the now-injured Carter, misses a simple conversion. The All Black lead is just 18-13.
Nick Evans talks to Tony Veitch after the 2007 Rugby World Cup exit
Then, the moment. Damien Traille punches between Sitiveni and the hapless McAlister, dragging McCaw into the tackle.
"As I drag him down, he offloads to Frederic Michalak on his outside. The pass has to be forward - my head is on Traille's left shoulder, he can't pass it through me," McCaw laments. "Traille throws the pass two metres short of halfway and Michalak takes it on the halfway line.
"As I hit the ground I see assistant referee Jonathan Kaplan right in line. Barnes is back behind us and might have been obscured, but Kaplan, so keen to assert himself in the first half, says nothing. By the time I look back up, I see the end of a brilliant French move - Jauzion diving across the line for the try.
"This can't be happening."
The All Blacks trail 18-20 but aren't finished. They pour phase upon phase at the French. Harinodoquy grabs the ball with his hands in a ruck.
"Barnes doesn't see it, or if he does, decides that he hasn't," writes McCaw.
Soon after Jean-Baptiste Elissalde ends the agony by kicking to touch.
It is over but, in a way, just beginning.
The dressing room, according to Anton Oliver, is a scene of misery.
"Sort of desolate, decayed, the smell of - I don't want to dramatise it - but death, you know. That is what it feels like, no-man's-land, and it is not a nice place to be."
Commentary: All Blacks crash out in Cardiff
"When fulltime sounded the French fans went crazy but were very gracious in victory, consoling us and repeatedly saying that the All Blacks were still the best team in the world," McMillan says.
"I just sat in my seat dejected, looking out over the ground. A Cardiff local sat down, put his arm around me and said, 'Tell me about it?' I went on this rant about how I might have to give up on supporting the All Blacks. It was too many heart-breaking defeats at World Cups to take and that I couldn't go through another four years.
"His response: 'I'm Welsh. We're never going to win a World Cup. At least you have a chance every time'."
In another portion of the stands, a different sort of angst is being played out in front of the press tribune. On arrival, two black-clad Kiwi girls had found themselves seated next to a pair of Frenchmen with a certain je ne sais quoi. There was a sexual frisson in the air.
The girls excitedly explained how they had tickets to the final and were asking a thousand questions about the best places to eat and drink in Paris. The Frenchmen obliged with cheery advice and bon mots.
Now, as the crushing defeat sees the Kiwi girls melt into pools of tears, one of the good-natured Gauls leans over and says with impeccable timing: "Bad luck. No, how you say, hard feelings, but would you mind selling us your final tickets?"
All Blacks greats react to loss
Aucklanders reacts to Cardiff loss
Disbelief is turning to joy. Walking back to the hotel, I skirt past the Fontaine de la Rotonde, where the town's main streets - ubiquitous names like Boulevard de la Republique and Avenue Victor Hugo - meet, there are already cars doing laps of the fountain, horns blaring, flags waving.
I can't help but smile. This would never happen after a quarter-final win in New Zealand.
Viva la France, indeed.
Richie McCaw fronts up to the press conference. He looks less a whole person that the sum of many broken parts. He will bury his head into his hands and when he takes them away it dawns on him, with the cameras clicking and the reporters asking questions he cannot answer - how? why? - that no, it isn't just a bad dream.
McCaw and coach Graham Henry survive the inquisition with dignity intact. Neither makes a fuss about the referee. This is pre-planned as they didn't want to come across as whingers and deny France their glory. In retrospect, it's a mistake. When Henry finally reveals the scale of his disgust while trying to save his job, it looks self-serving and hyperbolic.
("I've been involved in 140 test matches and 20 years of coaching... and I've never been involved in a game like this game," Henry would later say, citing the fact they didn't receive a penalty in the last 60 minutes despite close to 40, by his calculations, French infringements. McCaw was more restrained. "I don't blame Barnes, but I do blame the people who appointed the most inexperienced referee on the roster to a RWC quarter-final between the hosts and the favourites... By the end of it, I thought Barnes was frozen with fear and wouldn't make any big calls.")
Lane's crew of unruly Antipodeans were spilling out of the ground.
"The first people we saw was a group of about 100 New Zealanders all decked out in their tour gear. They would have been about my parents' age and they were bereft. Some had tears streaming down their faces and looked in shock.
"They had probably shelled out upwards of $20,000 to fly over for the knockout rounds, meanwhile I had 500 lizards who had spent 150 quid and while they were disappointed with the result, they just wanted to get back on the lash.
"I was pretty conscious that I didn't want these two groups to mingle because it could have got ugly."
One of Lane's buses is on blocks, with hydraulic fluid pouring from its under-carriage. Thankfully, they've hired a rickety old school bus as a reserve vehicle in case of a casualty. There is only one problem, it doesn't have a toilet.
Half an hour down the M4 and a guest is in critical need of a convenience stop with no relief in sight. The bus stops on hard shoulder, dangerously, illegally, but it is a case of so near but so far. As the unfortunate woman squelches miserably back onto the bus, Lane realises the night is unravelling.
Lane's buses arrived back to Paddington. The occupants were in a state.
"I enlisted 10 mates as my tour leaders and they were a liability," Lane explains. "They were as drunk as the punters, if not more. We arrive at Paddington and because the match had finished so late and the bus had broken down and we had to stop for the girl to p*** all over herself on the M4, the Underground had closed for the night.
"There were no cabs around. Basically I had no choice but to release 500 hammered Kiwis into the London night.
"Not my proudest moment."
McMillan can't sleep. His mind is still doing cartwheels trying to process the defeat. At 6am he leaves the discomfort of his dormitory bed and, Zombie-like, takes to Cardiff's streets.
"I pass all these numbed people in All Blacks gear doing the same thing," he says. "It was an odd experience."
Nobody knows what to do. For many, Cardiff represented the start-point of their epic adventure. They're now faced with non-refundable air tickets and two weeks in Paris waiting for matches they suddenly have little interest in. Few have the equanimity needed to look on the bright side.
Most of the disappointed and desolate were still unaware that a strong narrative thread is emerging, a thread that would lead to the most bizarre encounter of Greg Ford's journalism career.
"I knew that Barnes' performance was odd, but at that stage I didn't know it was unfair," said Ford, who was covering the event for the Fairfax group. "What had stuck out for me while covering the game live was that there were no penalties in the second half. I assumed he had frozen.
"It wasn't until I was given the task of tracking him down that I became truly cognisant of how his performance was being viewed back home."
Barnes has at least one passionate Kiwi defender in International Rugby Board referees' boss Paddy O'Brien**.
As it becomes clear just how tilted Barnes' performance seems to be, O'Brien - who had endured a self-confessed "train wreck" World Cup game himself, when he destroyed any chance Fiji had of beating France in 1991 - goes on the attack.
New Zealanders have to grow up and move on, is the gist of his message.
Except New Zealanders aren't ready to hear that. They are appalled by the All Black performance and, more pointedly, the selection policies of the coaches, but they also knew injustice when they see it.
Ford, who has a well-earned reputation for being a dog with a bone, hones in. After being rebuffed through official channels, he is wandering through central Paris the following week when he spies a few referees "eating croissants and drinking coffee" at a café.
He follows them back to a nearby hotel. There, at reception, he asks for Barnes room number and is given it, despite IRB assertions of security being put around the beleaguered ref.
Ford has one shot. Armed with two coffees and his most engaging smile, he raps on Barnes' door. After an age, Barnes opens the door in a pair of boxer shorts. Ford identifies himself, holds up the coffees and asks for a chat.
"No comment," Barnes says, shutting the door.
It was not before Ford notices that despite it being the middle of the day, all the curtains are drawn and the lights are off.
"It looked like he was trying to shut out the world," Ford said.
Which, ironically, is exactly what the All Blacks would have chosen to do as well.
All Blacks return to NZ after 2007 World Cup
There is one week to go. The All Blacks are making their way back... Nervous yet?
* All McCaw's thoughts are via TOS, published 2012
** O'Brien was contacted for this piece but did not want to comment
Former All Blacks' frustrations began before he coached his first All Blacks test.