KEY POINTS:
SERGE BLANCO
France 30 Australia 24
1987 semifinal
Don't think the All Blacks are the only ones to be robbed of a place in the final by the French.
Hard to imagine now but just over 17,500 people were at Concord Oval in Sydney for the match.
The more you look at this the more it reminds you of those lunchtime knockabouts at primary school where there was no ref - so play never stopped - the ball could go anywhere, anything could happen and the best player always scored the winning try.
With the score locked at 24-24, Australia get the lineout throw on the French 22. What follows seems like the longest minute in test rugby. The Aussies win a scruffy lineout so that by the time first-five Michael Lynagh gets the ball they're on the back foot. He fires it out to centrefield where the French win a turnover and wing Patrice Lagisquet hoofs the ball downfield.
The Aussies should have been able to tidy up but the French are so committed to the kick and chase lock Jean Condom flattens himself retrieving a bouncing ball.
He raises his head to see his side are still in the hunt and promptly conks out again as the French go right and then left. The ball is flung high and wide, Lynagh missing a clear intercept chance, before Serge Blanco outruns the Australian cover defence, including a missile-like Tommy Lawton, to score in the corner.
SEMO SETITI
England 35 Samoa 22
2003 Pool C match
"We haven't played a team that played that well in the first 20 minutes since I can remember," England captain Martin Johnson said after his side's last-quarter escape.
"We had to dig ourselves out of a hole, [as they] asked us questions that we haven't been asked in a long, long time."
The moment that kicked it all off came in the sixth minute with captain Semo Sititi's try, the first conceded by England in the tournament.
The movement starts just outside Samoa's 22 and smashes, zig-zags and swerves its way upfield through 11 phases and 40 pairs of hands before Setiti crash lands in the corner for the ultimate underdog try.
DAVID CAMPESE
Australia 16 NZ 6
1991 semifinal
The player of the tournament saves his best work for an out-of-sorts New Zealand in Dublin. In fact, Campo could rightly claim responsibility for two in this category for first setting up Tim Horan with his no-look outside slip pass as he heads infield and then, for sheer audacity, goes all the way himself right across a trance-like All Blacks' defence to score in the corner.
RUPENI CAUCAUNIBUCA
Fiji 18 France 61
2003 Pool B match
Fullback Norman Ligairi gets the ball from a breakdown on Fiji's 22 and begins a counterattack of flashing brilliance, first stepping the French inside backs, scooting wide and looping a long pass to Rupeni Caucaunibuca, who's waiting in the tramlines a good 75m from the line. It appears the French have enough cover defence, until Caucaunibuca goes round an almost dumbstruck Aurelin Rougerie and then sets off inland, beating two more defenders for the try.
He was the fastest and most dynamic player in world rugby but proved to be equally as volatile when in the same match he lays out Olivier Magne, gets sinbinned and then suspended for the next two matches.
GORDON HAMILTON
Australia 19 Ireland 18
1991 quarter-final
It's that big. If Ireland had knocked out Australia ... the All Blacks could well have gone onto win the final making it two in a row and fulfilling talk of New Zealand's rugby supremacy lasting into infinity. So imagine how the kid who loaded this readily available beauty on Youtube feels when the rider says: my dad scoring 4 ireland. Australia were done and dusted that day. The conversion put Ireland up 18-15 and they looked certain to knock out the Aussies as injury time arrived. And then heartbreak as Ireland halfback Rob Saunders misses touch, the Wallabies win a scrum and Michael Lynagh dots down for the match-winner.
