New Zealand stun Australia to secure World Cup glory

This article is more than 10 years old
Dramatic late penalty try helps seal 34-20 scoreline
Kiwis win the trophy for the first time in their history
Issac Luke of the Kiwis leads the haka after winning the rugby league World Cup final
Issac Luke leads the haka after New Zealand's win. Photograph: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

It was on Monday 27 October, after Australia had brushed aside an insipid New Zealand 30-6 in their first game of the World Cup, that the following passage appeared in Sydney's Daily Telegraph: 'If the Kangaroos comfortably beat England, the only other competitive side in the series, this weekend in Melbourne [which they did, 52-4], the engraver can start writing Australia 2008 on the giant silver World Cup.'

Yesterday morning's edition of the same newspaper had resorted to selecting a Rest of the World XIII in an effort to come up with some credible opposition for the mighty, and by implication unbeatable, Kangaroos.

But a few hours later, on a steamy evening in Brisbane, those Kangaroos, the World Cup trophy engraver and the vast majority of a 50,000 crowd received the shock of their lives.

The most significant upset in the history of international rugby league, given the stage and the stakes, came in the most dramatic final in the 54-year history of the code's World Cup, which included a crucial penalty-try decision by the video referee Steve Ganson - who, therefore, became, unarguably, the most influential Englishman in the competition.

There was also an astonishing error by Billy Slater, the trackwork jockey turned livewire full-back, who had already been named player of the tournament and the international player of the year, only to gift a score to New Zealand's stand-off Benji Marshall with the sort of speculative pass that has been coming off for him in recent weeks.

But Australia's coach, Ricky Stuart, refused to dwell on either of those pivotal incidents and instead found gracious praise for a New Zealand team whose depth had been severely tested by injuries to several senior players and the loss to rugby union of Sonny Bill Williams.

'Please don't make this too much about Australia. They were better than us tonight,' said Stuart. 'They've got their trophy in their shed. It's not in ours.'

It was, however, a night of triumph for one Australian - Wayne Bennett, the Brisbane Broncos legend who was in charge of the Kangaroos team stunned 24-0 by the Kiwis in the 2005 Tri-Nations final, and who last year agreed to work with the New Zealand coach, Stephen Kearney, in an advisory role.

This victory was down to a meticulous game plan constructed by Kearney and Bennett, and followed brilliantly by a Kiwi team for whom Nathan Fien showed remarkable composure for a makeshift scrum-half, combining with the more naturally gifted Marshall to bring the best out of some under-rated forwards. But would they have won without Ganson and his penalty-try decision? That question is as impossible to answer as it is now irrelevant.

The Kiwis were leading 22-20 with 10 minutes remaining when Fien's high kick bounced unkindly for Australia's wing Joel Monaghan, who then coat-hangered Lance Hohaia to prevent him grounding the ball. Slater was also in the vicinity, but Ganson, called into action by his Super League colleague Ashley Klein, was happy that Hohaia would definitely have scored without Monaghan's intervention. Issac Luke kicked the conversion from in front of the posts that follows penalty tries and suddenly Australia had to score twice to save the game, a possibility that disappeared completely when the impressive prop Adam Blair claimed a scrappy score five minutes later.

All this after Australia had taken a 10-0 lead inside 16 minutes, with Slater laying on tries for his captain Darren Lockyer and David Williams.

New Zealand offered a first warning shot by hitting back to lead 12-10, with scores from the outstanding loose forward Jeremy Smith and Jerome Ropati, the latter after the first of several borderline decisions that went in their favour as Ganson ruled that the ball had been stolen from Marshall rather than pulling him up for a knock-on. But Australia still led 16-12 at half-time thanks to a stunning second try for Lockyer. He could even have had a hat-trick by half-time, but Ganson spotted that the stand-off had failed to ground the ball correctly.

At the time, that hardly seemed likely to matter. But that was before one of the most memorable halves in rugby league history, which ended Australia's 33-year domination of this tournament - and left New Zealand as world champions for the first time.

Suncorp Stadium 50,599

Game rating 10/10

Referee Ashley Klein (England)

Australia Slater; Monaghan, Inglis, Folau, Williams; Lockyer, Thurston; Kite, Smith, Civoniceva, Laffranchi, Stewart, Gallen Interchange Hunt, Fitzgibbon, Tupou, Watmough

Tries Lockyer 2, Williams, Inglis

Goals Thurston 2

New Zealand Hohaia; Perrett, Mannering, Ropati, Vatuvei; Marshall, Fien; Cayless, Leuluai, Blair, Fa'alogo, Harrison, Smith Interchange Luke, Eastwood, Rapira, Manu

Tries Smith, Ropati, Hohaia, Marshall, penalty, Blair
Goals Luke 3, Marshall 2