Tokyo (AFP)

The poster for the first semi-final of the World Cup is known: the All Blacks will face England on October 26 in Tokyo, 24 years after a legendary match at the same stage of the competition.

The other semi-final will be determined Sunday after the last two quarterfinals, Galles-France in Oita and Japan-South Africa in Tokyo.

To reach the last four, England and New Zealand overwhelmed their opponents, Australia (40-16) and Ireland (46-14).

And the reunion is announced on Saturday, October 26 in Yokohama, a suburb of Tokyo, both teams made a strong impression.

The XV of the Rose, clinic, fed on the faults of the opponents to register four tries against Australia. Captain-scorer Owen Farrell scored 20 points, with a 100% success rate.

And what about the demonstration of the All Blacks, who "killed" the game in the first twenty minutes against a lost Ireland? They already led (17-0) ... This avalanche of points recalls (a little) the performance achieved against France (62-13) at the same stage of the competition at the World Cup-2015.

- The image of Jonah Lomu -

In any case, this demonstration spreads the desire New Zealand to win a third consecutive title.

The semi-final All Blacks - England returns to the same poster, at the same stage of the event in 1995. On June 18th, in Cape Town, South Africa, rugby entered the sports show with the four tests ( out of six) scored by a certain Jonah Lomu for the All Blacks, victorious (45-29). The winger superstar, who died in 2015, literally "walked" on his opponents. The image had traveled around the world.

This performance foreshadowed the evolution of rugby, not yet officially professional.

Far from the euphoria surrounding English and New Zealanders, their opponents of the day leave from Japan the suitcases loaded points and the head full of questions.

Ireland, who has taken on the World No.1 chastity for the summer, has still not managed to reach the semi-finals of a World Cup, and has never seemed able to challenge the World Cup. hegemony of the All Blacks.

Executives, including opener Jonathan Sexton, have failed and captain Rory Best is bowing out of trouble, such as coach Joe Schmidt, who will be replaced by his deputy Andy Farrell after the World Cup.

The Wallabies, finalists in 2015, will find it difficult to recover from this new defeat. Coach Michaël Cheika, in office since 2014, seems threatened. He refused to answer a question about his future at the post-match press conference.

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