KEY POINTS:
All Blacks 47 France 3
The chokehold the All Blacks had on France tightened another notch yesterday in what may have been the finest victory of coach Graham Henry's 34-test tenure.
A couple of wins against the Lions were pretty special and the victory two years ago
against France was something else. But this triumph probably outshone those feats.
If the world needed any more evidence the All Blacks are the best on the planet, they delivered it yesterday at Stade de Gerland.
Two years ago in Paris the French were blindsided by an All Black team which had been a spasmodic beast. This time the French knew what confronted them, they were intensely aware of the visitors' pedigree.
They were bullish about their chances, they were the Six Nations champions, they had beaten the Springboks in South Africa, they had recovered their rugby soul.
That healing is now an open wound again after the All Blacks inflicted a massive blow to the host nation's optimism about their chances of annexing next year's World Cup.
The humiliation was underlined after an hour when the All Blacks pulled Richie McCaw and Daniel Carter.
Seven tries to none was a flogging.
Just as they were the party poopers last week when England opened their new stand at Twickenham, the All Blacks spoiled the start of a mini-series to mark the centenary year of internationals between themselves and France.
The coaching staff and McCaw worked ultra-hard after the test to downplay the All Black superiority while French coach Bernard Laporte accepted there was a huge gap between the sides. He even described his side as "impotent" and was surprised they had not played better.
Henry said his side had a huge amount of motivation to succeed, there were the Armistice Day connections and the internal competition for selection in Paris.
"We played very well and the French found that difficult. We try and prepare correctly and play to the best of our ability and it clicked today," Henry said.
McCaw said the greatest satisfaction for his side was keeping the French tryless.
On a number of occasions their defence was so brutal they forced turnovers to score tries themselves.
When Laporte does his match review, he will not be able to tick many boxes on his analysis sheet.
The French scrum was embarrassed, the lineout was untidy, the tackling patchy, the invention negligible, the game plan wretched.
And for that Laporte must take a great deal of blame.
Observers of the French rugby scene told the All Blacks that makeshift first five-eighths Damien Traille would play to instructions and those would not waver throughout the test. He was ponderous and kicked most of the match, his up-and-unders almost the sole form of French attack.
It was an alarmingly sterile strategy, one which reeked of fear and damage limitation. They did not want to let the All Blacks rule the breakdown, so they gave them the ball off their boot.
They were tactics which made a mockery of the elegant backline skills of those who went before, men like Philippe Sella, Jo Maso, Serge Blanco. In Lyon yesterday, the French had all the panache of custard.
They eyeballed the All Blacks in the tunnel before the test and stared them down in the haka. But when the first jolting hits came in, their minds and resistance sagged.
All the wailing about the illegalities of the visitor's scrum was lost as referee Stu Dickinson awarded the first few penalties to the All Blacks.
There was so much pressure on the French that their locks were popped and their formations wheeled and battered. The pressure was ruthless. Jerry Collins, Rodney So'oialo and Carl Hayman were pitchforking the French back as hard in the final minutes as they did at the start. Ali Williams was strong in the air and put himself about with some serious intent while McCaw, James Ryan, Anton Oliver and Tony Woodcock were all masters of their department.
It is hard to recall a defensive onslaught from the All Blacks which has been so relentlessly efficient and so compellingly exhilarating. It crushed the French spirit and suffocated their ideas.
Many of the 42,000 crowd jeered the French at halftime and rose in acclaim for the All Blacks at the end.
The backs were the rock stars claiming six tries but the pack delivered the dominance. Behind them Piri Weepu, Carter and Luke McAlister were competent enough though their mistakes were more than they would like.
Conrad Smith scored a try on his return to test level when he scooted 80m from a nifty reverse offload from Williams.
On the flanks the cousins, Joe Rokocoko and Sitiveni Sivivatu, were the danger men.
Sivivatu was electric, his snaking runs giving him two tries, while his defence was much more substantial than his last test in Rustenburg.
"He really contributed and it is not always easy to do that as a wing," assistant coach Wayne Smith said.
TOP MARKS
Big scores by the All Blacks against major opposition
93-8 v Argentina 1997
69-20 v Scotland 2000
67-19 v Argentina 2001
64-22 v England 1998
63-15 v Ireland 1997
62-10 v Argentina 1997
62-31 v Scotland 1996
60-7 v Argentina 1989
59-6 v Ireland 1992
55-3 v Wales 2003
55-35 v South Africa 1997
54-9 v Wales 1998
54-7 v France 1999
53-37 v Wales 2003
52-3 v Wales 1988
52-16 v South Africa 2003
51-15 v Scotland 1993
50-21 v Australia 2003
OTHER SIGNIFICANT SCORES
* 47-3 v France 2006 - Highest losing margin at home by France
* 45-6 v France 2004
* 48-18 v Lions 2005 - Highest losing score by the Lions
* 43-6 v Australia 1996 - First Tri-Nations game
* 41-20 v England 2006 - Highest losing score at home by England
