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Sports

I Have No Idea What Happened in That Rugby Game, But Boy Was It Exciting

An attempt to understand the Rugby World Cup Final through sheer feeling.

It'd be stretching it to say that we here on the VICE Sports staff are experts on the game of rugby. In fact, the sum total of our knowledge is about as close to zero as you can get. Zip.

Take this for example: I was confused when announcers said that New Zealand had just sealed the World Cup Final against Australia, 78ish minutes into the game. "Come on, Silly," I thought. "Twelve minutes can change a whole game—I don't care what sport it is!" Turns out there are only 80 minutes in a rugby match. Whoops.

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But I digress. Regardless of my profane ignorance of the rules of the game, this match was fun as hell to watch. Between the ref cams, the Oceania-ic rivalry at stake, the blood, the glory, and the last-second try—what's not to love?

Going into the game, the All Blacks were the clear favorites. Hell, they are rumored to be invincible. No, seriously. Even opposing coaches have called them "the best team that has ever played the game." That's just insane. And that was before their game even started. What opposing coach even does that?

The All Blacks have this dude on their team named Julian Savea who just owns anyone trying to tackle him. Doesn't matter if they're a head taller than him. And he's not even the best player on the team!

Take a look:

The best player—well, ever—is their captain, Richie McCaw. This dude looks like he ate two Tom Brady's for breakfast, took on their power, and shat out the patent Brady idiocy. McCaw is a very good flanker, which sounds like a pretty cool position, if you ask me. You probably do something on the side. Like turning tricks. I dunno. Rugby is wild like that.

But it was winger Ben Smith who would come out the hero of the day. Australia was trailing the majority of the game, but had a late comeback to set the score to an obtainable ten point margin. Smith saw their attempt, and just decided to eviscerate them with a blurry field-long sprint that not even my gif can keep up with. He booted the ball twice (apparently you can kick the ball in this sport?) that resulted in a successful try (they call attempts tries in rugby, which is a very nice bit of nomenclature) that ended the match with a decisive 34-17 New Zealand victory.

That clip is above. It's worth taking another look at. Which can be also said for the sport of rugby itself. Seems like it's worth a try.