Do some coaching now; stop giggling and kissing people on the head and do some hard work and show people you can do it in Wellington on Saturday.

Graham Henry and co want to go through to the next World Cup - that looks a long way away after this lot, doesn't it? And France will be tougher next week.

This was a woeful performance, full of things that we shouldn't be mentioning in the same sentence as "All Blacks" - missed tackles, poor communication, poor chasing and ordinary scrums.

All week I wondered about the preparation for this game; it all seemed a bit loose to me and that's how they started the game.

They were slow, almost lackadaisical and, yet again, they capitulated against France.

The clincher was that horrible Luke McAlister pass for the matchwinning intercept try. What was that? It was the pass of a man who hadn't played top rugby for a long time.

Henry started out saying that he'd not played for a while and that McAlister would need time - and then chucked him into the team.

It came back to bite them. McAlister's face as he ran after the French fullback was stricken - he knew what he'd done. But if you are not ready for test rugby, you shouldn't be there.

Best performers were Cory Jane and Mils Muliaina and I thought Piri Weepu made a difference; he raised the snappiness, kicked intelligently and he lifted them. I thought Jimmy Cowan had a very ordinary game and I thought the service from forwards to backs was ponderous.

The ball slowed down at Stephen Donald and Ma'a Nonu spent more of his time slipping over than slipping the defence. In the forwards, the loosies had a slack night. Liam Messam missed tackles all over the shop and Adam Thomson had a poor game.

- Herald on Sunday

By Richard Loe Email Richard
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