No turning back for Nonu
The 33-year-old centre received a superb pass from Sonny Bill Williams to set off on a stellar 40-metre run to the line to put New Zealand 21-3 ahead against Australia just after half-time.
With a 34-17 victory, the final whistle at Twickenham closed the door on Nonu's 103-cap international career.
"It's time to go, and life goes on," he said.
"I'm pretty tired but relieved and really overwhelmed in terms of what happened," he said.
"When I woke up this morning, I didn't really think about finishing. It was all what I had to do ahead, when the whistle went off.
"We had a big job in hand trying to win it back-to-back, out of the country. I thought we hit patches in terms of our game during the pool stages but when it comes down to the crunch, we had to play our best rugby.
"I thought we had a real focus on what was in hand," he said, reflecting on the World Cup final build-up.
"We pretty much put behind us who was leaving and who's last game it was. I thought [captain] Richie [McCaw] nailed it on the head this week in terms of what was at stake and what we needed to do."
Nonu said the first half went according to plan, with New Zealand 16-3 up at the interval.
"We got off to a good start," he said.
"We were trying to be direct, look after the ball and offload really well for the first 20 minutes."
The pass from Williams was "a great ball. Sonny is the best off-loader in the game at the moment", he said, adding that he was surprised to reach the try line.
In the second half, teammate Ben Smith was sin-binned and Australia pulled the score back to 21-17.
"Discipline played its role in terms of getting down to 14 men and the Australians, they never lie down. They were quick to come back and score two good tries and put us against the wall and we just had to climb back into it," said Nonu.
New Zealand flyhalf Dan Carter was instrumental in the win, scoring 19 points to stretch his world record tally to 1,598. He has confirmed it was his 112th and final Test.
"I've seen him play like that before. I think it was extra-special for Dan in terms of playing in a Rugby World Cup final. In the past two World Cups, he's been injured," said Nonu.
"He just kicked into another gear over the last few weeks. We've just seen the best number 10 I've seen play for New Zealand."
Nonu, Carter and McCaw are all now departing the All Blacks scene, along with Keven Mealamu, Conrad Smith, Ben Franks and Tony Woodcock.
"I think it's key that we stick together over the next 48 hours. It's probably the last time we see this team together," said Nonu.
Receiving his winner's medal from Prince Harry was "pretty special", but suggested it may fade from his thoughts as his previous World Cup win did.
"2011's just a memory now," said Nonu.
He is now switching his career from the Hurricanes to French club Toulon.
"I'm not looking forward to that at the moment. I just want to enjoy this," he said.
Agence France-Presse
