Here at the sharp end of the World Cup matches aren’t always won by the team with the strongest scrum, the steadiest lineout, or the surest goalkicker, they’re not about how well drilled your defence is, or how dazzling your attack can be, or how clever your set plays are. There are no bad teams in the final four, no easy beats left any more; every one of them can beat the others, and has in recent seasons. The difference between who wins and loses, then, often comes down to something harder to grasp, something which can’t be measured on charts, or plotted on graphs.
When the stakes are this high, the pressure this heavy and the contest this intense, matches are about which team can get the best out of themselves; which team can find the energy in their spent legs to make that break when their side is six points down with a minute to the whistle; which team can find that extra inch of stretch in their fingertips to make the tap tackle to bring the man down as he goes clean through in the 22; which team can throw off their hurt and exhaustion, and force themselves back to their feet quickest so they’re first in position for that very next play.
