THE BEST team ever winning the best final ever at the climax of the best Rugby World Cup ever?
There is little doubt that the All Blacks side who made history by defending their World Cup crown at Twickenham on Saturday now stand alongside other true greats of sport such as the Brazil football team of 1970 and the West Indies cricketers of the 1970s and 1980s.
Steve Hansen, a master of the understatement, said simply after the 34-17 victory over Australia: " We're just ordinary people who can play rugby reasonably well."
Sir Ian McGeechan, the former British Lions and Scotland coach, believes that the current All Blacks - though this era may well have ended on Saturday - are right up there at the top. Only Sir Fred Allen's New Zealand side - who won 17 consecutive Tests between 1965 and 1969 - still stand apart in McGeechan's mind if only for the way they revolutionised the game and brought in phase play for the first time.
Such comparisons are impossible to prove. Few however would dispute the claims of the England 2015 tournament to be regarded as the most successful there has been, even given the stinging disappointment of the hosts departing so early.
Bernard Lapasset, the Frenchman who is the president of World Rugby, said: "This has been the biggest and we believe the best Rugby World Cup ever. It was a fantastic tournament on and off the field."
The quality of the matches was simply outstanding, beginning with Japan's bold and brilliant defeat of South Africa in Brighton, England's unforgettable showdown with Wales, some brilliant quarter-finals - Scotland's excruciatingly painful loss to Australia the most dramatic - to a final that will live long in the memory.
It was perhaps the best final there has been in terms of quality, though it perhaps lacked the emotion of South Africa's triumph in 1995 or the drama of England's famous last-gasp win in 2003.
This was final where instead there was everything to savour but the result seemed hardly ever in doubt.
The fairy-tale ending for the astonishing All Black talents who will now depart the international scene will no doubt add to its historical resonance. Hansen, not someone who gets carried away by the moment, made no bones about saying that his two main men Richie McCaw and Dan Carter are the two best All Blacks there have ever been.
Hansen said: "Richie is the best All Black we have ever had and Dan is a close second.
"The only thing that separates them is Richie has played 148 matches at flanker which is unheard of - you put your body on the line every time you go there. The challenge for the other guys now is to try and become as great as him and Dan."
The Rugby World Cup is now passed to Japan to be hosts in 2019 - the land of the rising scrum, as World Rugby chief executive Brett Gosper described it.
If that can generate half the action, excitement, dynamism and pure quality that this tournament in England 2015 has mustered, we are in for another treat.