By WYNNE GRAY
PARIS - French captain Fabien Pelous and prop Christian Califano together carry more caps than the entire All Black pack.
With a combined total of 75, the New Zealand pack is probably one of the least experienced in recent times, exactly 100 short of the French total.
Experience does not count for everything, as the "Baby Blacks" confirmed in 1986.
Throughout the history of rugby the All Blacks have been inspired by the deeds of their predecessors. But this weekend they are in France, facing further erosion of the aura those teams regularly carried with them before other nations embraced professionalism fully in the late 1990s.
The All Blacks imploded in 1998, sagged at vital stages in 1999 and are backing up at Paris this weekend after two straight defeats.
France are a giddy side, lurching between great and gaudy. But they have been the All Blacks' nemesis in the last decade.
Only three All Black forwards return from last year's World Cup semifinal loss. Hooker Anton Oliver (the most capped forward, with 26 tests), lock Norm Maxwell and blindside flanker Reuben Thorne have the chance for redemption.
For Thorne, that semifinal horror will never disappear.
"I'm sure the country was really upset, but there was no one more hurt than the players themselves. The guys who were there will never forget," he said yesterday.
The reinstatement of Thorne for World Cup skipper Taine Randell may be a benefit, but it is scarcely a choice to make the Tricolors tremble.
Perhaps it reflects selection options in New Zealand, where the fluidity of the Super 12 and Tri-Nations competitions has produced athletic rather than sizeable packs.
Thorne is a loose forward who moved to lock and now back to flanker. The back five seem to be interchangeable in New Zealand, whereas Northern Hemisphere sides such as France remain more with tradition. They have their bulldozer front-rows, monster locks and brutal, physical loose forwards.
Like the All Blacks now, they win some and lose some at test level, but like the French Barbarians the other night, they have the ability physically to overwhelm sides. Do the All Blacks? Not for some time.
Is it a real or imagined weakness for the current coaching regime?
Coach Wayne Smith accepts there are problems. His squad have gone through a great deal of extra work to find solutions to combat the French work at scrum, lineout and pick-and-go drives.
There is more emphasis on tight-five muscle in the Northern Hemisphere.
"It is a good point and it is certainly the approach we have taken," Smith said.
He accepts that there is a perception that the All Blacks are vulnerable in the pack, that NZ A had been exposed a little there against the French Barbarians.
"It is still a perception I guess, every game changes," said Smith, who did not want to be drawn any more on the issue.
The approach his side have taken is that they have to work hard in all areas.
The All Blacks carry every reason for redemption this weekend. They will not be looking past this match as they did in October last year. They have to be optimistic, too, because even though France are forever dangerous, the vagaries of their form have not been settled by new coach Bernard Laporte.
If the All Black pack hold and Andrew Mehrtens can unleash his back four into space, the All Blacks can win.
Just as New Zealanders have began to wonder more how their national rugby side will operate, the French could not tell you which of their test combinations will turn up at Stade de France. It is shaping as that sort of test.
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