That rule is crazy. How the hell are you supposed to build pressure on the opposition if you've got to give them the ball every 2 minutes?! Stupid. Union is so much better.
Well, firstly you don't have to give them the ball every 2 minutes because half backs with a semi-decent kicking game (take note Jonny) can get a repeat set of six if the defending team are tackled inside their in-goal area. You can also get extra 'tackles' if you kick a 40-20. Plus of course, even if one side does run out of tackles the other side has to run the ball out from within their 22, they don't have the luxury of endless bouts of kicking to each other as you get in Union. I think in the final there must have been half a dozen garryowens, one after the other, none achieving anything whatsoever. I think even Stuart Barnes was getting bored eventually.
Adversely, you could be the England Yawnion team who between both the two WC games against them plus the two friendlies they played against SA must have gained all of about 10 metres from dozens of phases of posession. Lets face it, if England didn't have Robinson they would have had no one in the past decade capable of breaking the line on a regular basis. The only pressure they put on anyone in the last 15 minutes was themselves after crabbing from one side of the pitch to the other, desperately waiting for Sir Jonny to do anything remotely creative to live up the endless hype heaped upon his shoulders.
Don't let the WC win fool anyone. This England team scrap with the best of them but if we ever go more than a score behind then we're lost because we have absolutely no creativity in the half backs, no vision in the centres and no pace on the wings. A return of 12 tries in 7 games sums that up nicely, despite playing sides that the other leading nations scored bucketloads against (hence why SA scored some 90 points more than us in the group stages alone - and lets face it, SA aren't in the same class as NZ or Aus as an attacking force).
The WC was a victory for pragmatism. 10 man rugby gaining territory and then using the set-pieces to either drop goals or look for penalties. That's why England, France, SA and Argentina did well because they all play that game very well. We were the rugby equivalent of Greece winning Euro 2004.
I rest my case. 5 kicks to 4. Webb Ellis would be rolling in his grave shouting up at the toffs "I told you to run with the bloody thing, stop kicking it away"