The All Blacks and France have played out many classic tests over the years. Photos / Photosport, NZME
France begin a three-test series against the All Blacks this week, having won the last three straight against New Zealand, searching for their first victory against the All Blacks on New Zealand soil since 2009.
The two teams have met 64 times since their first clash in 1906. The Herald lists the 15 best tests between the two nations.
Rugby World Cup final, Eden Park, June 20
The first-ever final and despite playing the All Blacks at home, France would have liked their chances, after having already disposed of Australia on home soil in the semifinals and having beaten the New Zealanders a year earlier.
The All Blacks were up 9-0 at halftime, thanks to a try from Sir Michael Jones. Appropriate, too, as Jones, en route to becoming one of the all-time great All Blacks, had also scored the opening try of the tournament against Italy on the same ground.
The French were outplayed, but hung on until two tries in a couple of minutes by captain David Kirk then wing Sir John Kirwan, after an unstoppable surge from the restart initiated by Kirk, killed them off.
Kirk lifted the Webb Ellis Cup to a home crowd, who no doubt assumed this would be the first of many such occasions.
The All Blacks were worthy winners, their rugby and fitness levels being significantly better than the rest throughout the tournament.
World Cup semifinal, Twickenham, October 31, 1999
The day the All Blacks conceded 33 points in 27 minutes to turn a comfortable 24-10 lead to a shattering defeat.
With Jonah Lomu at his rampaging best, it seemed a foregone conclusion that the All Blacks were bound for the final. Then their guard dropped. After all, had they not walloped a disinterested France 54-7 in Wellington a few months earlier? But the boot of Christophe Lamaison turned the game round. Lamaison put over two dropped goals in two minutes, then kicked a couple of penalties and suddenly it was a two-point game.
The French spirits soared, they became men possessed and stormed the black barricades. An All Blacks turnover enabled little Christophe Dominici to sprint clear and four minutes later, stroppy centre Richard Dourthe crossed too.
When bearded wing Philippe Bernat-Salles beat Jeff Wilson to the ball for the fourth French try, the game was up. French joy knew no bounds. Tears flowed. There were claims French fingers did some dodgy handiwork in the close-quarter stuff. But the All Blacks were under orders: no retaliation, so they sat back.
Rugby World Cup final, Eden Park, October 25
An old-style scoreboard attendant would have earned a fair swag for their work during the World Cup final at Eden Park.
Just four times, they’d have reached for the white numbers painted on to the black boards to hang on the hooks.
The All Blacks opened the scoring with a skillfully worked lineout move which saw Tony Woodcock dive over. A familiar result to the pool game where the All Blacks won 37-17 looked on the cards. The back-up to the back-up first five-eighths Aaron Cruden went down injured and Stephen Donald came on before halftime. He slotted a penalty after the break to put the All Blacks up 8-0 before French skipper Thierry Dusautoir scored a minute later. Game on.
The All Blacks held on with a stadium of four million holding their collective breaths as Andy Ellis kicked the ball out on fulltime to secure a second World Cup title – and 24 years of waiting was over.
Rugby World Cup quarter-final, Cardiff, October 6
Remains the All Blacks’ worst showing at a World Cup. Again, it happened following impressive results since the previous cup. Between November 2004 and June 2007, in five successive tests, the All Blacks knocked up 218 points to 41. So the quarter-final with a 61-10 win in Wellington four months earlier to bolster confidence should have been a foregone conclusion. Right? After all, the French were not in one of their golden periods.
The All Blacks led 13-3 at halftime. Does this sound familiar? But tries to Thierry Dusautoir, the captain, and Yannick Jauzion edged France in front. The All Blacks played dumb rugby, eschewing dropped-goal opportunities. They claimed referee Wayne Barnes diddled them in the second half, refereeing only one side. True, a forward pass was missed, but the bottom line was the scoreline.
The All Blacks may have thought themselves superior man-to-man, but once again, when it really mattered, they had left their brains in the dressing room.
Rugby World Cup quarter-final, Cardiff, October 17
Déjà vu after their nightmare exit against the same side at the same stage of the tournament at the same stadium? Non, non, and non.
It was a rout, a record quarter-final score at a World Cup, a victory to make a mockery of all the doubt and angst surrounding the New Zealanders’ performances in pool play.
The All Blacks didn’t so much break their shackles as smashed them to smithereens.
It was a clinical, ruthless performance and some of the handling was simply breathtaking. The All Blacks ran in 10 tries, with Julian Savea scoring a hat-trick – including a Lomu-like run that saw him bunt off several defenders.
Second test, Eden Park, July 3
AKA the test that produced the try dreams are made of. More significantly, after winning the first test in Christchurch 22-8, it clinched France’s first series win in New Zealand.
The All Blacks led 20-16 with three minutes left. The game seemed to be up when wing Philippe Saint Andre gathered a deep kick near the French tryline. It went through eight more pairs of hands as the French pulled the All Blacks defence hither. Hooker Jean-Michel Gonzalez to first five-eighths Christophe Deylaud, then big flanker Abdel Benazzi strode up the middle of the park.
Classy wing Emile N’tamack, a first-half try-scorer, took up the charge, followed by top-class openside flanker Laurent Cabannes, Deylaud again, halfback Guy Accoceberry, who might have made it himself, and finally, thrillingly, fullback Jean-Luc Sadourny, who dived over for one of the game’s most famous tries.
Put it up there with Gareth Edwards for the Barbarians against the All Blacks, or Serge Blanco’s semifinal clincher against the Aussies in Sydney at the World Cup in 1987 for starters. Saint-Andre gave the try its place in folklore: “It was a counter-attack from the end of the world,” he said.
Cute line, and it’s stuck.
Second test, Athletic Park, August 5
A heavy ground accompanied by a gale blowing at about 140km/h. Ah, Wellington on a good day.
Yet the “Hurricane” test goes down as one of the All Blacks’ most famous wins. Scoreless at halftime, with the goalposts swaying in the howling winds, France went ahead against the breeze with a fine try by wing Jean Dupuy 15 minutes from the end, back when tries were worth just three points.
But the game turned on its head when flanker Kel Tremain charged down an attempted clearing kick by Claude Lacaze and scored out near the corner.
Step forward “The Boot”, Don Clarke, but even the great match-winner was deemed to have little hope of converting.
Clarke explained what happened next. “Believing the conversion was impossible, I simply kicked out along the 25 [22m line] and left the rest to the wind. To my astonishment it went over. I take no credit for that kick. It was a fluke,” he told noted rugby writer Bob Howitt in New Zealand Rugby Greats.
The wind swung the ball at right angles to fly between the posts for perhaps the most improbable conversion in all test history.
Second test, Nantes, November 15
The Battles of Nantes, in which the French played as if men possessed, throwing themselves into the fray with a rare old passion.
The French had some tough men: No 8 Laurent Rodriguez, abrasive flanker Eric Champ, tighthead Jean-Pierre Garuet and the beautifully named Jean Condom.
Best remembered for No 8 Sir Wayne “Buck” Shelford, in his second test, having his scrotum stitched up after a French boot found a soft target at a ruck. Hospital? Forget it. Hard man Shelford returned to the field before being concussed. The legend grew.
“I was knocked out cold, lost a few teeth and had a few stitches down below,” he told the BBC. It’s a game I still can’t remember.“
The French got two second-half tries against an All Blacks side who finished with prop Kevin Boroevich at lock, a collection of walking wounded. “It was one of the toughest test matches I have ever played,” Shelford added, somewhat unnecessarily, you’d think.
One-off test, Paris, November 27
The French were Six Nations champions, ergo the All Blacks were in for a tough night at the Stade de France. So went the theory.
Simon Barnes, prominent sports writer for The Times, reckoned on the eve of the match that “for once, the great, implacable, unstoppable All Blacks machine has made an error. Today, New Zealand must take on a half-decent rugby team”.
He went on about the All Blacks too often taking on weakened opposition or fielding what they called developmental sides.
“It increasingly seems that the All Blacks myth is just a mite short of substance these days. And all the policy and planning and organisation seem to be designed to protect the myth ... There is precious little that is exceptional about the present All Blacks, apart from the mystique.”
So 74,000 turned up to watch the champs give the visitors a duffing. What followed was a five-tries-to-nil flogging, with a couple of Freddie Michalak penalties the only response.
The All Blacks were outstanding; the French, a hail of whistles bearing down on them, were woeful. Then again, this was not a World Cup year. And after Barnes’ handiwork, tailor-made to be pinned up on the All Blacks’ dressing room wall, where did that leave the Six Nations champions then?
One-off test, Stade de France, November 20
Not many teams have put 40 on the All Blacks. This was just the seventh time and the third occasion it was the French dishing out the pain. One week on from the deflating defeat in Dublin by Ireland, the All Blacks were again upstaged, this time by the inspired French, to consign Ian Foster’s men to three losses in a season for the first time since 2009.
While the All Blacks mounted a second-half comeback, scoring three tries, the damage was done in the first spell when they were shellshocked in front of 79,000 at the Stade de France, trailing 24-6 at the break in their largest halftime margin in history.
The All Blacks displayed heart to close within two points heading into the final quarter but a yellow card to Ardie Savea helped the French storm home to a treasured victory – their first against the All Blacks in 15 attempts.
Second test, Athletic Park, July 27
This game makes it into an elite group solely for one stunning moment. There was plenty of grubbiness on a chilly day in Wellington and referee John Pring was working overtime to keep things, er, seemly.
After 28 minutes, France were awarded a penalty about 6m inside their own half, 12m in from touch.
When fullback Pierre Villepreux lined up the shot at goal, laughter was heard ringing around the old stands. This, after all, was the man who had muffed an earlier effort from shorter range. The distance was estimated at about 65m.
Guffaws turned to gawping as the ball not only sailed between the uprights but cleared the bar by a mile.
It remains one of the most famous long-range penalties, and is still up there among the longest.
Sir Colin Meads won his 46th test cap that day, equalling the world record of Ireland’s Jack Kyle.
No one remembers that; they do remember the booming boot of the French No 15.
Second test, Eden Park, July 14
Bastille Day – and the French know their history.
So what better occasion for France to nab their historic first test win on New Zealand soil? And it was done with a fair bit of style too. They hadn’t been given much chance, after getting turned over 12-11 by Southland between the two tests.
But tries by new halfback Jerome Gallion, first five-eighths Alain Caussade, classy centre Didier Cordonious and wing Jean-Luc Averous did the trick. Up 24-10, they hung on before scenes of unbridled delight.
Rugby World Cup pool game, Stade de France, September 9
What a start to the tournament. A pinpoint cross-field kick from Beauden Barrett to Mark Tele’a and the All Blacks were in after 91 seconds. The rest of the half was a tight tussle, broken up by four successful penalty attempts.
Down 9-8 at the break, an Ardie Savea chip-and-chase set up Will Jordan to run free and a phase later, Tele’a was in for a second thanks to a superb long pass from Richie Mo’unga. Mo’unga then made a try-saver to deny Damian Penaud in the corner and all seemed like the All Blacks were getting on top with a 13-9 lead.
The final 25 minutes though were all France. Penaud eventually dotted down on a second attempt, Jordan was sent to the bin and Thomas Ramos banged over two more penalties. Just like that, it was 22-13. France added a second try to hand the All Blacks their biggest World Cup defeat.
Second test, Paris, November 19
Remembered as the test when the All Blacks got their skates on after losing the opening clash by five points at Toulouse a week earlier.
Coach Jack Gleeson and captain Graham Mourie brought in a change of philosophy for Paris. Short lineouts were in, the game was to be played at pace. The French were run around the park.
The All Blacks were up 9-3 at the break. No 8 Gary Seear hoofed over a long-range penalty, Brian McKechnie kicked a penalty, a dropped goal and a conversion, and wing Stu Wilson got the game’s only try, chopping back inside to score near the posts.
Future test captain Andy Dalton chose a good day to make his test debut.
First test, Carisbrook, June 13
The last time France beat the All Blacks on New Zealand soil (they did manage four wins at the 2011 World Cup against other nations) was against an injury-stricken home side in Dunedin. No Richie McCaw, Daniel Carter, Ali Williams, Rodney So’oialo, Conrad Smith or Sitiveni Sivivatu for Sir Graham Henry to select, with Mils Muliaina captaining the side. But no excuses for the All Blacks.
France started fast to lead 17-3 after 27 minutes but the All Blacks responded with a try from Liam Messam, assisted by debutant Cory Jane, and three penalties from Carter’s replacement Stephen Donald (as it was foretold). The turning point came with the All Blacks trailing 20-17 on attack in France’s half when Luke McAlister’s pass was intercepted by fullback Maxime Medard, who ran 60m to score to hand the All Blacks their first home defeat in 15 years.
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