PARIS — South Africa and New Zealand will collide in the Rugby World Cup final and the latest chapter in their ferocious century-old rivalry guarantees history.
One of them will win a record fourth title. South Africa could clinch back-to-back World Cups. New Zealand has a chance at a third triumph in four tournaments.
They are the Rugby World Cup’s top teams, providing for many a fitting climax at Stade de France on Saturday.
England and Argentina are this World Cup’s nearly men, who made the semifinals against all expectations only to fall at that hurdle and just miss rugby’s biggest game.
England’s painful loss came by just a point to South Africa after the English led and dominated for almost all of their grinding semifinal.
The Springboks escaped with a 16-15 victory after replacement flyhalf Handre Pollard’s nerveless late penalty from near the halfway line.
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The All Blacks swept aside Argentina’s semifinal challenge 44-6 with a hat trick from wing Will Jordan among their seven tries in all.
With that, New Zealand surged into a record fifth final in 10 Rugby World Cups, and gave itself a chance at avenging its loss in one of the sport’s most famous games.
New Zealand and South Africa have met just once before in a Rugby World Cup final, when the Springboks prevailed on home soil in 1995 in their first appearance at the tournament after the end of apartheid.
That epic game nearly 30 years ago has remained as a landmark moment in 102 years of Springboks-All Blacks rivalry. This weekend provides the chance of another.
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