The 2011 World Cup represented something new and different again for me personally - a tournament watched entirely on television, rather than at first hand. As well as being potentially an exercise in aversion therapy, it was a reminder of what TV does and does not do well. Great as it is on close-up detail, it cannot - literally - do the big picture. There was that perpetual sense of there being something vital just out of shot.
To be in London rather than Auckland had the odd compensation. Sky News probably had to trawl a long way down their list of potential interviewees before locating me rather more conveniently placed in East London. The invitation to discuss England's shambolic departure amid flying dwarves, impromptu harbour swimming sessions and damning leaked reports led to my features appearing on-screen captioned 'England Shame'. Was I really that bad?
From a distance it looked like a tournament which promised, but did not always fully deliver. The opening week continued a trend from 2007, an evident improvement by second-rank nations buoyed by extra IRB funding for whom pre-tournament camps were a real opportunity to bond with team-mates rather than a continuation of their usual existence.
But actual shocks were limited. Tonga did beat the embattled French, but had already lost to Canada, so France still squeezed through. The most significant pool stage result was Ireland's defeat of Australia, which was no great shock but split the knockout stages into Northern and Southern halves.
That was welcome news for Wales, given their perennial inability to beat the Wallabies. Wales had arrived in New Zealand via disciplinary infractions which led briefly to the axing of first-choice scrum-half Mike Phillips and some improbable-sounding low-temperature conditioning in Poland, to confront a pool stage which looked like the ghost of World Cup nightmares past. Samoa, their conquerors in 1991 and 1999, as well as Fiji, who had humiliated Wales just four years earlier? That prospect made the opening defeat by South Africa after a half-decent performance look even more of a missed opportunity than usual.
The relief when Samoa were seen off after a battle and the Fijian crop proved distinctly non-vintage was immense. So was the disbelief when Ireland were beaten in the quarter-final and the French, visibly at odds with their coach and fortunate to have found England in even greater disarray in the quarters, were all that stood between Wales and the final.
It was a pleasant novelty simply to be relevant. To be a live contender and the form team going into the semis seemed to be the stuff of parallel universes. It also created a quandary. How could I not try to be there should Wales make the final?
So perhaps I owe referee Alain Rolland thanks for saving me both money I had not got and a giant case of jet lag. Rolland's sending-off of Sam Warburton in the semi-final against France seemed a classic piece of letter- rather than spirit-of-the-law refereeing. Hope lived on - when Phillips scored Wales's try I somehow found myself, from a seated start, three feet above the sofa in my cousin's flat in Great Yarmouth - but with the naggingly persistent knowledge that victory could only come at a physical and emotional cost that made winning the final all but impossible.
That was even allowing for the All Black psychodrama and the astonishing attrition rate among outside-halves, with Dan Carter limping out of the tournament and various alternates being tried. Somewhere former greats Earle Kirton and Grant Fox were doubtless polishing their boots.
New Zealand's other icon, captain Richie McCaw, seemed at times to be playing on one leg. Finding another decent seven would not have been a problem - New Zealand proliferates in opensides who would play Test rugby if they were European. But finding somebody to replace McCaw, even a somewhat diminished one, was a very different matter.
France could have won the final, and perhaps deserved to. But if the wrong team won the final, the right one won the tournament. It has been argued that Wales, undoubtedly a better team than France, might have beaten New Zealand. Don't you believe it (much as I might like to). New Zealand know all about and routinely beat Wales and would have been delighted to play them in the final.
France were who they least wanted to play. That the French had lost to Tonga was no reassurance, since so (on a pre-tournament tour) had the 1999 team that shattered All Blacks dreams in the semi-final at Twickenham. To play France was the supreme moment to confront both of New Zealand rugby's deepest fears - World Cup failure and the team which personifies it. It wasn't pretty, and you could say it was lucky, but it was anything but easy and took genuine guts.
And so to England in 2015.........