For All Blacks fans, a Rugby World Cup miracle reignited hope – and then snuffed it out

‘If there’s any team that can pull off a comeback, it’s the All Blacks,’ said one hopeful fan. Photograph: Craig Mercer/MB Media/Getty Images

For the crush of All Blacks fans at Jack Hackett Sports Bar in Wellington, New Zealand, the hope that hardly anyone expected to have died hard.

More than 100 supporters crowded the Irish-themed pub – rapidly redecorated with silver ferns, New Zealand flags, and black and white balloons draped from a stuffed moose – for a breakfast of hash browns, sausages and Guinness pints. A smattering wore hastily found All Blacks jerseys from 2011 and 2015: the years of New Zealand’s most recent Rugby World Cup titles.