Mike Phillips bursts through to score against France in Auckland
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The French were battered, refused to come out of their bunker and waited for the young Welshmen to crash and burn. The crash didn't come, writes James Lawton in The Independent.
"You know how it is when something you have been persuaded is worth believing in goes out of the door. You know that empty feeling, the sense that the sunshine is a little less bright or that the wind which seemed to blow so invigoratingly has brought only another reason for disillusionment.
"It might be held that a team of sportsmen, however young and splendid, is an unreliable vehicle for such emotion, but maybe you would believe it with a little less conviction were you here today, mourning the end of Wales' chance of winning the World Cup.
"Of course, it was always possible that the French, the cynical and often too frivolous and irresolute French, would find a way to make their third final but the worst of it is they were as disgraceful in their 9-8 victory over 14-man Wales as when they surrendered to Tonga at the end of a dishevelled pool campaign."
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