French 'destiny' to reach Rugby World Cup final

France believe they have "destiny" on their side despite being labelled as possibly the worst team ever to reach a World Cup final. France coach Marc Lievremont was defiantly unapologetic after 'Les Bleus', yet to win the World Cup, squeezed into their third final on the back of a mediocre 9-8 win over 14-man Wales at Eden Park on Saturday. "I don't care at all whether it was a good match or not, whether the Welsh deserve to be in the final, we have qualified for the final and that's all that counts," Lievremont insisted. Wales played more than an hour a man down after captain Sam Warburton was sent off by Irish referee Alain Rolland in the 19th minute for a 'tip tackle' on Vincent Clerc that saw the France wing land on the back of his head. Yet despite having a man advantage for more than an hour, France failed to score a try all game and it was in fact 14-man Wales, thanks to powerful scrum-half Mike Phillips, who grabbed the only try of the match. France though clung on for a win on the back of three Morgan Parra penalties. But such was France's lack of ambition, New Zealand's Sunday Star Times, said "it will be a miracle if they prevail" in a final against either the All Blacks or Australia. "They have to be the luckiest team ever to find themselves in the showpiece game of this tournament," the paper's rugby reporter, Marc Hinton, added. But the French players believe it is their destiny to play the final after withstanding a valiant effort by Wales. "The rugby gods have sided with us. It must have been our destiny to be in that final," full-back Maxime Medard said. Scrum-half Dimitri Yachvili added France were frustrated by their performance but proud to have won through to the final after losing two of their pool matches, to New Zealand and Tonga, before scraping into the quarter-finals, where they outplayed old rivals England. "We are frustrated because of the way we played and won. But I prefer to play ugly and win than the contrary," Yachvili said. "The circumstances (Warburton's red card) made it easier for us. But maybe it was just our destiny (to qualify for the final). "Who would have thought we would come this far?" Clerc, who was uninjured in the lifting tackle by Warburton, said it took his team-mates some time to realise the enormity of their achievement. "We went back to the lockers very quietly. It took us two to three minutes to realise that it was done, that the game was over, that we were in the final. "We are really relieved because we suffered all through the game," Clerc said. "After the red card, we adopted the wrong plan. We were suffering under the Welsh pressure. We did not do anything in attack and we lost a lot of balls. "Fortunately, our defence was pretty remarkable. We managed to stay disciplined and that also saved us. I was never so scared on a field." Openside flanker Julien Bonnaire added: "Maybe we thought a bit too early in the game that we had won. "We were not terrible in the pool phase. We disappointed many people, here and back home, but I hope we made it up for them by making the final." France lock Pascal Pape was particularly relieved at the full-time whistle after his missed tackle allowed Phillips to score the only try of a dour struggle with 20 minutes left. "Personally, it was really hard, because I was the one missing the number nine (Phillips)," Pape said. "The rugby gods sided with us. Now we are 80 minutes away from the dream."