The Stadium looked great, but the pitch was poor, the refereeing was pedantic and the winners had the losers in a vice-like grip which eventually made them buckle. It was death by torture. Ultimately, and appropriately, the World Cup got the winners it deserved, and the final it deserved.

That the Wallabies were the best all-round team of the tournament brooks no argument. Defences win World Cups, and never more so than this year. The one try Australia conceded against the USA Eagles meant that their first-choice team, per se, kept their try-line intact for five games, and if the French can't breach them, with all their invention and pace, you'd wonder who could.

Probably only the All Blacks, and it's ironic to think that the most majestic performance of the tournament ultimately went some way to ensuring that the final would be an anti-climax. If France were still there they probably wouldn't have scored a try.

Occasionally Abdel Benazzi would take the ball over the gain line and draw three or four men into contact, but the Wallabies would re-organise themselves within a second or two.

Occasionally the speedsters, Phillipe Bernat-Salles and Christophe Dominici on the wings, or Olivier Magne or Emile N'tamack through the middle, might beat a tackle, but invariably they would swiftly be ensnared by the covering Tim Horan or whoever. There were layers upon layers of them.

Much to the palpable disappointment of the majority of the crowd, which gave the Millennium Stadium a Parisian feel before kick-off and sometimes during the game, the tricolours just couldn't break free.

It's surely no coincidence that the rugby union country most heavily influenced by rugby league have this defensive thing cracked the best. It starts with when they have the ball. They never took undue risks by moving the ball wide quickly, as the All Blacks had done, where the turnover could be most costly. They never counter-attacked in their half like the All Blacks did either. They never do.

It was significant to hear them repeatedly cite the work and the sacrifices that went into this campaign, not just for the last eight weeks in camp, but for the last two years. No squad planned their campaign more meticulously or clinically.

They had so many of the tournament's outstanding players in so many positions: Horan and John Eales most obviously, perhaps also Ben Tune, George Gregan, Toutai Kefu, Richard Harry and others. But most of all they were the outstanding collective. They are the game's ultimate professionals, playing the ultimate, percentage rugby.

Rarely has a game panned out so predictably. The issue was rarely in doubt, save for the fleeting moments in the first-half when the French created sufficient momentum for Christophe Lamaison's diagonal kicks behind a stretched defence. But Benazzi's "try" from Olivier Magne's tap-down was correctly disallowed, while Stephen Larkham brilliantly covered across to deny Bernat-Salles. And that was that.

Otherwise, it was just a case of whether Matt Burke would out-kick Lamaison with the torrent of penalty chances which predictably came his way, or whether the Wallabies would embellish the occasion with a try or two.

Some of the penalties were the result of excellent Wallaby moves, such as the double switch which put Joe Roff through the French midfield, resulting in the outnumbered French defence desperately pushing up offside to prevent a try off the recycle.

Other times it was for continually contesting the ball on the deck, though the penalty against Magne under his posts for not releasing was ridiculous given that the tackler, Owen Finegan, looked to be more culpable for playing the ball rather than rolling away. Furthermore, Australia won the turnover ball swiftly enough to have mounted an attack wide out.

One of the most intriguing sights of the final was the build-up to Matt Burke's 58th minute penalty, when Australia had been attacking just inside half-way. At one point the entire Wallaby team were concentrated in a channel no wider than 15 metres.

The defining and decisive moment was Tune's try. Here again, the Wallabies got numbers to the ball in sustaining a quick-rucking, 50-metre drive down a channel again no more than 15 metres wide. This is because they are willing, and have the ability, to offload before or in the tackle, or pick up and drive as soon as the ball is presented. It's high-tempo, low-risk, continuity rugby at its best.

The outstanding Horan was involved three times: he began it by bouncing off Benazzi, and then provided the final link between Gregan and Finegan for Tune to score. When Finegan subsequently left the French in his wake (including a scandalous non-tackle from sub scrum-half Stephane Castaignede), it gave a false slant to the final score-line.

However, this finale, like so many finals, was a bit of a flop, as has been the case with the 1999 World Cup generally. The much-hyped Millennium Stadium has looked and sounded magnificent, especially for the opening and closing ceremonies, but then the roof opened and the rugby started.

And the main problem in Cardiff - aside from all the difficult logistics of getting and staying there - was the pitch.

On Saturday, again, it was nothing short of a disgrace, given they had four years to get it right. France's first two strong scrums left indelible indentations on the pitch, obliging Andre Watson to move the next put-in to the side.

If anything, the almost grassless surface negated the French speedsters, who didn't have the top of the ground conditions they experienced on Twickenham's pristine billiard top. It's ironic that clay didn't suit Les Bleus as much as grass, given they will play host to Australia in the Davis Cup final on an indoor red clay court in Nice.

Perhaps too, there was an element of mental fatigue within their ranks. Benazzi had another mighty match, their defence had been equally heroic, and you couldn't fault the likes of Magne, Lamaison, Dominici and Bernat-Salles for effort or invention. They tried everything they knew, as did some of their hard men up front, but to no avail. By the end, they looked utterly bunched.

It was always going to be well nigh-on impossible to scale the inspirational heights of six days before. But most of all they had shown their hand against the All Blacks. Allowing for the lack of individual inspiration, France didn't do much different to what they did against the All Blacks.

Again, they probed the blind side in numbers, again their forwards drove well at line-outs and managed a few close-in rumbles, again they kicked in behind the wingers and chipped over the top.

All the while though, Australia read them like a book. All hail the wizards of Oz.