View from the sofa: At long last The Curse is lifted – by a comedy row of French derrieres

Rugby World Cup, ITV

New Zealand players celebrate their victory over France (Getty Images)

It wasn’t Brodie Retallick scoring New Zealand’s first try, or Sean Fitzpatrick finally cracking a smile at half-time, or Nick Mullins the commentator comparing the All Blacks’ performance to The Exorcist that made us Kiwis believe that The French Curse had finally been lifted.

Rather, it was the sight of of five burly Frenchmen’s buttocks after their shorts had fallen down in a second-half maul that proved the hex had been broken. Redemption, courtesy of a quintet of French arses.

Fitzpatrick’s face was etched with worry when he summed up the feelings of four million New Zealanders and anybody who enjoys high-quality cava rugby (not champagne – anything but champagne) when he said before Saturday’s quarter-final: “If the All Blacks are not full throttle, they are going to lose.”

Barely five minutes into the coverage and Fitzy, one of the greatest captains to pull on the black jersey, had already dropped the “L” word. It was set to be a long couple of hours. Mullins didn’t help matters when he brought up two games every Kiwi would rather are expunged from history, just as the All Blacks hunkered down for the haka.

He intoned: “The French seem in disarray – surely they can’t inflict the sort of damage they did in 1999 and 2007? The New Zealanders already have been struck by lightning twice. Surely it can’t happen a third time...?”

No, Nick, surely it won’t happen. But thanks for bringing it up, we’d almost forgotten about those two rugby disasters.

Even after kick-off it was difficult to adopt a positive frame of mind. And when Scott Spedding’s 60-metre kick for France bounced over the crossbar of the goal for three points as Mullins shouted “would you believe it!” the anxiety increased.

The rational side of any nervous Kiwi would have pointed to the fact that barely two minutes later Retallick lumbered his way over the try-line like an extra from Lord of the Rings – swiftly followed by Nehe Milner-Skudder. We were 11 points ahead with 15 minutes to go in the first half. Time to breathe easily? Yes, if it wasn’t for the memory of that time in 1999 where we were winning by more at half-time – and still lost.

Then came the wardrobe malfunctions. Suddenly a dangerous French pack looked like a circus act, stumbling around trying to hoist their shorts back up. Bring on the custard pies, the clowns have arrived.

Louis Picamoles may have let the embarrassment get to him when he landed a punch – sorry, a “push with his fist”, as the TV match official described it – on Richie McCaw, the All Blacks captain. They went a man down; surely we could dare to dream.

And yet there was still time for Mullins to mention 2007 again. And 1999. Even after the final whistle, after we’d stuck 60 points past them, Mark Durden-Smith, the host, brought the games up once more. Fitzpatrick scowled.

“I knew mentioning them was beginning to irritate you,” Durden-Smith said to Fitzpatrick. “Just a little,” the former hooker said, through gritted teeth.

So for Fitzy’s sake, for the sake of every Kiwi who has had to live with The Curse for 16 years, let’s not bring the games up again. But if we could replay once or twice between now and the next tournament that bit where Les Bleus revealed les derrières… that will do just fine.