Auckland, North Island
And so, after seven weeks, 48 matches and 360 tries, the 2011 Rugby World Cup is over.

The final ended up as simple as ABC - All Blacks champions - so it seems fitting that we should follow suit. I'll start us off, you fill in your own suggestions.

A is for
Altitude Bar, the Queenstown drinking-hole where Mike Tindall and several other England players enjoyed themselves a little too much for the tabloids' tastes. See also Adductor Longus Tendon, the body-part that obsessed a nation after Dan Carter's injury robbed them of their fly-half phenomenon.

B is for
Beards. Not since the hirsute heroics of the 1970s has so much facial fuzz been seen on a rugby pitch. Canada's Adam Kleeberger and Jebb Sinclair led the way, but honourable mentions must also go to England's Dan Cole, Australia's Tatafu Polota-Nau and Italy's Martin Castrogiovanni. Chin up, boys.

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Eden Park, Auckland

Whichever bright spark decided to make the Monday after the World Cup final a public holiday in New Zealand deserves 4.4 million pats on the back.

After 24 years of false dawns and ghastly upsets, there will be no holding back. The All Blacks' nerve-shredding 8-7 win over France meant many things - palpitations from Whangarei to Wanaka, the noisiest party in Auckland's 170-year-old history, countless hungover headaches across the land - but as you looked around Eden Park late on Sunday night, camera-flashes twinkling among the black-clad thousands in the stands like stars in the night sky, one emotion dominated all others: an enormous, unmistakable sense of relief.

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Auckland, North Island

On Sunday night, New Zealand will run out at Eden Park as clear favourites to be crowned world champions for the second time.

Many rational judges cannot see them failing. Even if France do pull off one of the great upsets and deny them the Webb Ellis Cup, the All Blacks can still lay claim to being - historically, consistently - the best team in world rugby by a country mile.

Controversial stuff? Not really. Since the start of Test rugby, the All Blacks have a win percentage of almost 75%. No-one else gets close. Not South Africa at 62%, nor France at 55%. Certainly not England, Australia or Wales with 53%, 52% and 51% respectively.

How has one small nation dominated the sport for so long? What makes New Zealanders so good at rugby? And why, World Cup wins aside, is that supremacy actually growing? Since Graham Henry took charge of the national team in 2004, New Zealand's win percentage has climbed to a staggering 85%.

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