It's not always the losing finalist, surely.

1987: hard to go past France - unbeaten in pool play and then beating tournament favourites Australia on their home patch to make the final.

1991: New Zealand, clearly. Comfortably accounted for losing finalists England, but not good enough to compete with the Wallabies

1995: South Africa, nuff said.

1999: South Africa, maybe? Looked ominously good until they got Bernied in the semi, then beat out NZ for third place. France the other obvious option.

2003: Australia, by far. Unbeaten in pool play, suffocated the ABs in the semi and then drew the final.

2007: Argentina. Beat the host nation twice on their home patch, falling only the eventual champions.

2011: Wales? Beaten in pool play, but for an extra inch or two would have made the final. Australia another obvious candidate, but were rolled by an average Irish side in pool play.

Not Wales. They played 3 top tier teams in the competition and lost to them all. If Australia hadn't choked against a minnow then Wales would almost certainly have gone home in the quarters. Australia were the second best.

Don't change the fact Liverpool are fucking shit.

They lost as many games at the RWC as the USA and most of the other minnows. They only made it as far as they did due to a favorable draw. Even the South Africans were shocked at how easy their draw was.

I'm aware that my choice is controversial.

The second best team was South Africa, they beat all comers in pool play only to lose to Bryce Lawrence in the QFs under controversial circumstances, so I'm told.

Well SA were arguably first best in 1987 and first bestest again in 1991.

The answer you seek is New Zealand.

I know. Always makes me wonder why they never accepted their invitations to those tournaments back in the day. If they were that good you'd think they'd have come and got their trophy.

2011- South Africa closely followed by Australia.

2007 was no one. A spectacular king shit in the bowl of tournaments.

I prefer your other login, bro.

48 hrs

I'm surprised it took this long...

I'm not, most of the world is asleep while you guys get the opportunity to build up a head of steam, generally by the time we get to join in you've all climaxed and just relaxing into the smoke.

Who cares?

2nd is the first of the losers.

Wales were a fair draw away from not making it out of pool play.

This...and although as a Welshman I'd suggest that we possibly played the best brand of rugby all World Cup, given that by it's very nature the World Cup is a knock-out win-at-all-costs competition, how you actually go about playing means the square root of fuckall, and it's only wins that count.

As such, the second best team at any given World Cup will be the beaten finalists.

In 1995 it was France. Rules were broken to cheat them out of a berth in the final by an apparent need for the third best team in the tournament to provide catharsis to an entire nation.

LOL.....and the trump card was played in the final!