The Rugby World Cup's over, which means any day now, our media will start talking about something else. But the wholesale replacement of the news agenda with endless trivia about a ball game wasn't entirely corrosive of the nation's intelligence. Adam Dudding presents 10 important-ish things we might never have known if it were not for the RWC. --------------------

You too can look like Sonny Bill Williams. Maybe.

When Sonny Bill Williams tore his shirt in the first match of the cup, what lay beneath was regarded with a certain awe: slab-like, sculpted muscles, and lots of them. The following week Dr Nigel Harris, senior lecturer in physical conditioning at Auckland University (who knew there was such a post?), told the Herald that envious men could look like that too, as long as they were willing to commit to three or four intense gym sessions a week, heavy on weight-lifting. A nutritionist added that you'd also have to go on a rigid gym diet high in fibre, fruit, vegetables and lean protein. So that's nice to know. Harris conceded that to look that good and play well, you probably did need to be "genetically blessed" though.

The All Blacks are getting bigger – and less pudgy.

Massey University ran a ruler over All Blacks' vital stats from 1905 to 2005 and found they're getting taller and heavier: modern players have on average 12cm and 21.5kg over their 1905 counterparts. Most fans might have guessed that, but there were quirks: the variance of body mass index within teams increased in the mid-1980s as players became position specialists, but this variance has since reduced, as players all trend towards a standardised shape that's tall, fast and muscular. In other words, even forwards can no longer get away with lugging a great big gut around.

Watching footie makes your heart race.

Researchers from Christchurch Polytech and Otago Uni strapped heart rate and blood pressure monitors to 20 rugby-watching volunteers and found hearts thudded an extra 15 to 50 beats a minute during exciting bits, such as Ma'a Nonu scoring against the Wallabies. What pushed pulse-rates even higher, though, was when the Christchurch-based subjects experienced a 5.5 aftershock while watching the All Blacks-Argentina quarterfinal on telly. There is, sadly, no data on what fans' hearts did on discovering the only beer they could drink at games was Heineken.

All Blacks can kick better than some robots.

Andrew Mehrtens gamely entered a kicking competition with three robots – from Massey and Canterbury universities – in Auckland's Victoria Park. Mehrtens thrashed one of the tin men (named Woderwick after a Monty Python gag), who'd gone haywire after getting oil in an air line. He also outkicked the second, but drew 5-5 with the pneumatically powered RoboDan, who came complete with swivelling robotic head and no groin to strain.

Even the most incredible shirts the universe has ever seen can still rip.

Shortly before everyone started hating adidas for being filthy capitalists, the sportswear firm had a moment in the sun as media credulously repackaged a hyperbolic, pseudo-scientific press release about the new All Black shirt. According to adidas, it took them 28 months to design "the best rugby jersey in the world". It was half the weight of its predecessor, "allowing players to go fractionally faster". "It is a three-dimensional garment!" said the adidas MD. And despite its lightness, the shirt was "just as strong". Some reality checks: the weight saving was 180g, equivalent to two-thirds of a cup of sweat or, in layman's terms, bugger all. Three-dimensionality is a pretty unremarkable characteristic of clothing unless you're dressing paper cutout dolls. And Sonny Bill Williams' shirt still fell to bits.

An All Blacks victory is enough to make the earth move.

We learnt that deep below Eden Park, Auckland University seismologists have buried metre-long sensors that can detect when fans get excitably mobile on the surface – during a Rugby World Cup final, for instance. The fan-ometer function of the sensors – buried 400m and 30m below the surface – is just a cute side-effect of a rather more serious plan: to detect the tiniest of seismic and volcanic movements beneath the city. The scientists say that during the final, the crowd went wildest during the post-match awards ceremony and speeches, but the data also clearly shows big spikes for other exciting moments, including the one-and-only All Blacks try.

Rugby fans are afraid of death.

This paper's Focus section leapt on the rugby bandwagon by throwing a few rugby questions into its online BrainScan survey of politics and personality. Among the curious conclusions: hardcore rugby enthusiasts, when compared to hardcore rugby-haters, are happier, more nationalistic and more aggressive. They're also more negative about the Treaty, keener on smacking children, and more worried about dying. Various other surveys told us that 68% of Kiwi women were rugby fans; that Kiwi kids like Justin Bieber more than Dan Carter; that a third of Kiwis were dreading the cup; and that 41% of us figured the event would be disruptive. These last two figures didn't stop anyone from harping on about how New Zealand was a stadium of four million, when it clearly wasn't.

We may or may not be a nation of violent losers.

One prediction gleefully repeated by rugby-haters was that an All Blacks loss would spark a surge in domestic violence as wound-up fans trudged drunkenly home for a bit of off-field biffo. Women's Refuge were poised to collect the stats in the event of defeat, but it was, of course, never put to the test. The other prediction that'll be hard to prove without the benefit of a time machine is the theory that a home victory is an election booster for the incumbent government.

Statistical models occasionally get it right.

New Zealand-born, Australia-based mathematician Stefan Yelas predicted match outcomes using the computer model he developed in 2003 as part of his degree in applied statistics. The maths is rigorous, but results aren't guaranteed: in 2007 Yelas gave New Zealand the highest odds of winning (48%), well ahead of second-best South Africa (24%), and the Boks still won.

This time round Yelas was even more confident in the ABs, giving them victory odds that varied between 63% and 81% as he kept plugging each new result into his formula. His quarterfinal calls were only half-right (he failed to pick losses by England and South Africa); ditto the semis (he thought Wales would beat France). But by finals day he was utterly bullish, giving the ABs a 92% chance of beating France. It was close though, wasn't it.

The names of a few obscure body-parts.

The All Blacks proved that running violently into other men and swinging your legs about wildly is hazardous to health, as, one by one, their bodies fell to bits. But at least we all learnt a few new words. The interesting bits in Dan Carter's groin are his adductor longus tendons, and he badly tore the left one during a training kick. Metatarsals are the five long bones in each foot between the phalanges (fancy word for toes) and the tarsals (the bones nearer the heel), and Richie McCaw has a screw in his fifth right one. That gross bendy thing that happened to Aaron Cruden's knee during the final is called a hyperextension.

Some words aren't so tricky: Kieran Read hurt his ankle, Mils Muliaina hurt his shoulder, and a Frenchman shoved his pointy fingers into Richie McCaw's eye socket.

-Fairfax NZ