The New Zealand head coach, Ian Foster, has insisted he “doesn’t care” who the All Blacks face in next Saturday’s World Cup final after blitzing past Argentina to book a showdown with either England or South Africa.
New Zealand cruised into the final with the highest winning margin in a World Cup semi-final since their 1987 victory over Wales. The All Blacks scored seven tries with Will Jordan contributing a hat-trick to take his tally for the tournament to eight and tie the record currently held by Jonah Lomu (1995), Bryan Habana (2007) and Julian Savea (2015).
Jordan will get the chance to break the record next weekend when they bid to become the first team to win the competition four times. New Zealand are also the first team to reach the final for a fifth time – though that milestone will be matched by either South Africa or England on Saturday.
Such was New Zealand’s dominance that they chose to play the last four minutes with 14 men. Scott Barrett had been shown a yellow card but when his sin-bin expired, the All Blacks opted to see out the closing stages a man down as a “precautionary measure” to avoid a second yellow for the lock.
Should the All Blacks face England it would give them a shot at revenge for their 2019 semi-final defeat but Foster said: “I’ll be watching [England v South Africa] with some popcorn. I don’t care who wins, to be honest. We’re very much in a focus about ourselves stage. And one thing that extra day does give us is a chance to have a break mentally, and not to spend too much juice worrying about if it’s them, if it’s them.
“South Africa have been playing some brilliant rugby, also seen an England team that have built away quietly. They understand how they want to play and are starting to get really good at how they want to play. And they believe in themselves.”
Meanwhile, Argentina have now suffered their third defeat at the last-four stage with a place in the final continuing to elude them. The head coach, Michael Cheika, insists that the Pumas are far from finished, however, setting his sights on a third-place finish in Friday’s bronze-medal match.
“We will carry on, we will continue to give the best of ourselves,” said Cheika. “This week is important for us, we want to finish third. We need to learn from this semi-final. Right now we are hurting, our heads are hurting, we’re hurting inside but we will be ready for Friday.”
