Well, 6 point lead going into halftime. Cautiously optimistic, but man, some tries would be nice. Err, preferably South African ones.
Wish granted. That was not a boring second half.
And man, that second try…absolute legend!
Still not sure the pass for the second try wasn’t forward, but don’t want to cast sour grapes - that was a deserved win for SA, they executed their game plan much better than England. Monstered the scrum and the breakdown, England were on the wrong end of some close decisions from the ref but again, they can’t blame that for their loss. It’s disappointing but I hope Eddie Jones stays on and continues to develop this team.
Has anyone else beaten the All Blacks and Australia in the same World Cup and not won it?
Well, I was 0 for 2 on that prediction! 
The best team on the day definitely won the final. South Africa applied pressure from the first minutes, in attack and defense. They forced England into a whole bunch of errors, and England also chose the final to make more unforced errors that all of their other tournament games combined. Especially in the first half, if England could have avoid some little mistakes, they might have made a much closer game of it. Still, full credit to the Springboks for a great performance.
I think you must mean the second pass for the first try, scored by Mapimpe. The pass from Malcolm Marx to Mapimpi, near the sideline, did look a little bit forward from the replays.
There were only two passes leading up to the second try, by Cheslin Kolbe. England dropped the ball, and there was passes from Lukhanyo Am to Pieter-Steph Du Toit, and from Du Toit to Kolbe, and both of those looked completely fine to me.
I’m so glad I didn’t bet on the final. I was absolutely sure that England was going to win, easily.
The Boks were fantastic and played England like england played NZ, they never let the English be comfortable. It was a great game and SA was the rigthful winner.
Yes, you’re absolutely right - thanks. The TMO did look at that, but seemed to dismiss it quite quickly, which surprised me. A rugby-playing friend watching it with me was convinced it was forward, I’m still not sure as it was a part of the pitch without much in the way of reference points.
To reiterate, I agree South Africa deserved their win, regardless.
Canon’s put their crazy highlights up.
Here’s South Africa’s first try. That pass is shown top down at about 14 seconds.
Nothing marginal about Kolbe’s second though
Thanks for that - good enough for me that it wasn’t a forward pass.
Losses are so much more dispiriting when one can’t whine about third party factors affecting the result.
I think that Japan was a great host (and did well as a team.)
Now we need Tier 1 Nations to include more teams (e.g. Japan, Fiji, Georgia) in their annual competitions.
yes, but will they be in your squad later this year
Oh yes! 
Saracens are the current European and English champions.
In the off-season they recruited an 8th England international, Eliot Daly.
If only my soccer team (Tottenham Hotspur) could match Saracens…
You may have missed some news, glee
A 5-and-a-bit million quid fine and a 35-point deduction