Had one offered an Australian a runners-up medal a year ago he would have taken it with glee. He would still have been enthusiastic about the idea seven weeks ago. Talk to them after the trinket has been conferred, though, and one is looking into the glazed eyes of men going through hell.
In the case of Scott Fardy, those eyes peer out from a face scored with the scars of battle, picked up not just from the previous 80 minutes but a tournament of heroism in which he performed wonders, part of a back row as good as any, part of a team almost as good as that.
This World Cup has proved a triumph for more teams than just the All Blacks. When the pain of defeat has subsided, Australia will appreciate the progress they have made over the past year.
A winner’s medal, which did not look so far away with quarter of an hour remaining, would have been beyond the wildest aspirations a year ago, so the silver gong pointedly not round their necks afterwards cannot be dismissed as irrelevant. Not that anyone will catch Fardy looking back to consider their achievement.
“We’ve been really ‘next job’ focused, which has been important for us and got us where we are today,” he said when asked to comment on how far they have come. “I’ll stand back and look at it later, when I’m done, when I hang my boots up.
“You’ve got to look forward at what’s coming next. You put on a Super jersey soon, start again. That’s life. You lose games but how you react shows your character and there’s a lot of character in this group.”
This is the kind of unsentimental response to prompt a frenzy of nodding from an All Blacks life coach. Ignore the past, relish the present, look to the future, and the results will look after themselves.
Fardy is confident about Australia’s prospects and that of rugby union, a beleaguered code of football some way down the list of favourite pastimes in his country.
“We’re very settled, all on the same wavelength, heading in the same direction. I believe when new players come in they’ll get swept up in what our identity is and move the game forward in our country. That’s always been the plan – to make sure young kids want to play the game. At the end of the day that’s why you have a national side.
“If we bring those kids in through the gate, do them proud and turn them into rugby players, then we’re doing our job. I believe we’ve done that.”
It was a theme that was returned to as successive players ran the media gauntlet afterwards. Will Genia, Israel Folau and Nick Phipps all talked about the impact their journey had had back home. They all praised the support that buoyed them, even on the other side of the world.
“We’re disappointed the journey’s over,” said Phipps.
“We put everything we’ve got out there. We’re all very proud the way we’ve turned ourselves round this year. In one year the belief we’ve shown to the Australian public is something we can be very proud of. We’re pretty happy with the way it’s gone – 10 out of 12 wins, with the only defeats to the world No1. There’s so much potential in this group.”
This World Cup proved just a little too soon for them, even on the dizzying upward trajectory they have ridden over the past few months.
But, if the worth of a beaten team is measured by the pain they feel in the aftermath, Australia are right to look to the future with confidence.
