Rugby: The All Blacks' longest night heralded a brighter dawn
By Gregor Paul  Even our most seasoned players were nervous,
apprehensive and forgetting decision-making skills in the tense
final.  Even by halftime, Kieran Read realised he hadn't shed
the cloak of apprehension that had wrapped around him all day.
For all the pre-match assurances that the World Cup final was a
game like any other, it was apparent to Read and his fellow All
Blacks on October 23, 2011, it was anything but.  Auckland,
normally so placid and apathetic, had frothed into a city for
the obsessed and expectant. The semifinal win had rattled
something loose: a nation came of age that night, believing for
the first time in 24 years that the World Cup could be theirs.
By mid-morning the city centre was abuzz; the All Blacks aware
from their elevated hotel rooms that the black ants below were
there for them. The tension rose, nerves jangled. The usual
routines didn't seem to work - no matter what the players did,
they couldn't find any me