The tale of the sixth World Cup is both a new and old one. The novelty has been the rise and rise of the unconsidered teams, of Georgia, of Tonga, above all of Argentina, unconsidered only in so far as no one quite knows what to do to protect their future at the highest level.

It has been the arrival of Portugal, the flamboyance of Fiji, the full stadiums and the enthusiasm of the crowds, good weather, truly the festival of rugby that Bernard Lapasset, president of the French Rugby Federation and incoming chairman of the IRB, wanted it to be.

But it has also been a tournament whose later stages have been characterised by defences so suffocating that teams have been forced — or have accepted the need anyway — into a kicking game. That is why the IRB has been testing experimental laws over the past year designed to enhance the attacking game, because it believes it has to keep step with the growing public enthusiasm for rugby and because broadcasters tell the world governing body of the sport that it needs to be simplified.

Syd Millar, the IRB chairman, emphasised his belief yesterday, as supporters of England and South Africa enjoyed their final moments on the streets of Paris before heading home, that the game has to be “freed up a bit, make it easier to play, referee and understand, produce more options for players on the park. The new laws are designed to do that and maybe hand the game back to the players, for them to make the decisions.”

Expert View

South Africa looked like a team who had prepared for four years, England like a team who had prepared for four weeks

Simon Barnes

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BACKGROUND

• It’s widely known that I’m teetotal. I broke the habit on this occasion

• England take heart from brave new pretenders

• How England rated

• Miracle men suffer dose of reality

BACKGROUND

• England's future rosy, but is Ashton included?

• Toulon wait for Springboks master

• IRB aims to secure future not just for kicks

• South Africans urged to grasp chance for change

BACKGROUND

• Springboks dominate awards

• Boks on top in brutal battle

• Springbok kickers destroy England

• Ashton merits credit for glorious run

BACKGROUND

• It's over: dream dies as Boks win Rugby World cup

• Boks kill the unlikely dream

• Brave England go down with pride

• Video ref made 'brilliant decision’

BACKGROUND

• So who ate all the croissants?

• Au revoir France

• Victory whoops of the rainbow warriors

• Mrs Mills solves all your rugby problems

BACKGROUND

• English roses fall for Saint Jonny

• Stodgy England confine Bryan Habana

• Still joking about the All Blacks and Wallabies

• Wheels come off the chariot

Multimedia

• The World Cup Podcast

• Josh Lewsey's video diary

• The Rugby World Cup blog

Related Links

• Vintage 2007: a surprising red and white

• Au revoir France

But Millar also acknowledges the inevitable split that occurs in tournament play when the pool stage gives way to the serious business of sudden death. The need to win — what the professional sportsman is bound to deliver first — creates its own inhibitions, no matter what the laws of the game are designed to do.

As Eddie Jones, the former Australia coach who exchanged the silver medal he won with the Wallabies in 2003 for a gold as tactical analyst to South Africa, said: you tamper with the laws at your peril. There has to be an understanding of what attracts people to rugby in the first place. It could be argued that the game is not doing so badly under the present regulations, in the Guinness Premiership or at international level, though that may also have something to do with the nature of the people who play it.

There have been individuals at this tournament whose quality shines through merely for being themselves: Phil Vickery, the England captain, is a case in point, John Smit, his South Africa rival, is another. They not only say the right things, they do them, too, which is harder. There is a sincerity about such people that enhances the game, with all its warts, as a whole.

It will remain one of those ironies that both teams in the final emerged from a welter of political disagreement, whereas New Zealand felt that they had discovered the formula for success. Graham Henry, the All Blacks coach, will now understand what Clive Woodward was trying to achieve as head coach of the Lions to New Zealand two years ago.

Woodward tried to cover every possible base in his determination to find a winning formula and ended up beaten 3-0 and roundly criticised. Henry, too, tried to find a new way of beating the jinx that has accompanied New Zealand in every World Cup since 1987 and ended up with a similar amount of egg on his face. The point to both men was that they tried but the overall system was their enemy; that is something the merry-go-round of coaching appointments to follow this World Cup will bear in mind.

This World Cup has shown that there is not necessarily a right way and a wrong way to prepare, only what suits an individual country and its players. It would help if this restores genuine competition at international level that successive World Cups have begun to undermine and that, rather than preparing for an event four years down the track, coaches should prepare for no more than the next fixture, the next tournament.