All Blacks coach Ian Foster shakes hands with Scott Barrett following the Rugby World Cup defeat to France. Photosport
All Blacks coach Ian Foster shakes hands with Scott Barrett following the Rugby World Cup defeat to France. Photosport
OPINION
Gregor Paul in Paris
The All Blacks have opened their World Cup campaign with a statement performance of sorts, one that has placed them firmly in the category of long shot with an impossible amount to fix-up if they are to still be in Francein late October.
What the All Blacks have done is shown the world they are stunningly mentally frail.
A brilliant occasion, which was brilliantly refereed, saw a brilliant French team systematically tear the All Blacks apart, in a performance that must have them already installed as favourites to win their own tournament.
How much there was between the two teams in terms of the macro stuff is hard to tell.
But in the art of handling pressure, of staying calm in those critical plays, France were light years ahead of the All Blacks.
They were the blue heads, the All Blacks the red heads and the story of the night can be reduced to saying that one team had the ability to stay in the moment and make the passes stick, while the other didn’t.
One team looked like they loved the pressure, the other didn’t and the old cliches get wheeled out at World Cups about little moments having big impacts, because they are true.
It was endless little moments that cost the All Blacks dearly in Paris and their inability to win many, if any, leaves a heavy doubt hanging over them whether they have the mental resolve to win this tournament.
World Cups are about handling pressure, and the All Blacks just didn’t do that. Not for long enough, not the way they needed to.
Thomas Ramos of France is tackled by Will Jordan leading to a yellow card. Photo / Getty
On a night when they needed to show that they not only had the heart to be champions, but also the head, they could only deliver on the former.
So many times they stuck the dagger in themselves: conceding a penalty straight after they scored the opening try; Ethan de Groot knocking on late in the first half when the French were scrambling, and Tupou Vai’i doing much the same thing under his own posts after the All Blacks had scored their second try.
And of course there was the obligatory yellow card – gifting France a 10-minute period to get ahead and take total control of the game.
Those mistakes, those failures to be tidy and clinical were a lifeline for the French, who looked nervous and cagey in the first half.
France may have wowed the Six Nations these last few years and shown the world that they can still do wonderfully French things with the ball, but whether it was nerves or a fear of opening the game open to let the All Blacks play unstructured rugby, they offered nothing exotic in way of attack in the first half.
It was decidedly bland, French vanilla even, a procession of slow rucks and not particularly great box kicks from their talismanic captain Antoine Dupont who gave the distinct impressions he was playing within himself – seemingly running through low percentage plays with the intent of suddenly springing a surprise with a high-risk strategy.
They kept themselves in the game living off the largesse of the All Blacks who just kept handing them presents until things went totally awry.
The game was in the balance until 50 minutes, at which point the French came to life, Dupont did ramp things up and put the squeeze on and the All Blacks cracked open a little too easily.
Their composure didn’t desert them, but it was like a TV signal back in the old days when the aerial was on the back of the box – it came and went, frustratingly so.
They looked a bit broken by the end, out of ideas and almost out on their feet.
Mark Telea scores the All Blacks' second try during the Rugby World Cup opener against France. Photo / Getty
Nothing really worked for them in the last quarter and as the errors compounded, France could see they not only had the game won, but the All Blacks psychologically damaged.
There was no fear in the French eyes by the end. They had seen the All Blacks up close, weathered all that had been thrown at them and, a wobbly 40 minutes aside, had no real problems handing out what was a comprehensive beating in the end.
And so now it will be questions, questions, questions for the All Blacks. They failed their first test. Badly failed it and while they can point to the relatively long list of injured players they can hopefully recall as the tournament progresses, only the blindly patriotic will be confident that this team can, in the next month, discover the art of playing pressure rugby.
As All Blacks coach Ian Foster said before the game, World Cups bring a different pressure – one that France look superbly equipped to deal with, but one that may be just too intense for this All Blacks side to get to grips with.
The loss will be met with an inevitable “quell horreur” response in New Zealand as it is after all the first time the All Blacks have beaten in pool play and is therefore another unwanted first achieved in the Foster era.
And unless the All Blacks make drastic improvements in their mental game, this World Cup will be a long and X-rated horror show for them.
