France 12 All Blacks 39
No question - the All Blacks kept their best for last on this tour. This was their best performance of the year, the antithesis of their opening test of the season five months ago against the same opponent.
If this is the new standard the All Blacks have set for
themselves, then the rest of the world should take some quiet thinking time. The All Blacks in this kind of mood; this kind of form are lethal.
They ticked all the foundation boxes, except for the scrummaging which was a bit hit and miss, and that was the platform they needed. But this was a performance about the extras, about the way the All Blacks created space and found their attacking vision again.
It was about Dan Carter and the way he danced and spun and caused the French terrible trouble. It was about the way the All Blacks counter-attacked with precision, with pace and creativity. It was about the way they passed and ran always finding space, always kept the ball alive and played with too much tempo for the French.
It was about Kieran Read coming of age as a test class No 8 who really does look the business.
The All Blacks had been threatening this performance all tour. The frustration that they were unable to deliver earlier was obviously compounding over the weeks.
What it took for the breakthrough was a combination of a dry ball, warm night and a French team that were just as keen to play. For all the lamenting about the rules and current state of world rugby, there never appears to be too much wrong when two teams with the right attitude collide.
For test match football to work as a concept, both sides need to buy into the concept of taking risks. The ball has to be passed out of the tackle; the width has to be used and the space found and exploited. If there is no trust, there is no game and what we had in Marseilles was two sides confident enough to put themselves out there.
There were blessed few sessions of aerial ping-pong as both sides were able to work better mileage with the counter-attack - the All Blacks especially. The back three were sharper than they have been all season. They had the right balance of when to run and when to kick and they worked off each other cleverly, timed their passes well and ran with conviction.
It was like the All Blacks of old - the side that no one wanted to play in 2005. Sitiveni Sivivatu was meandering like the Thames and showed he's still got it, really got it, when he blasted past Vincent Clerc before feeding inside to Mils Muliaina for the second try of the game mid-way through the first half.
Sivivatu had been the scorer of the first try when he was on the end of some sharp passing after the French had been stretched to the right and the attack switched back.
And once the All Blacks had scored that second try - arguably their best of the season - they clicked into another gear. The confidence was flowing again and they were looking for holes and finding them.
Carter sparked into life and there were runners following him everywhere looking for off-loads which usually came.
Read burst superbly on to a short pass on the angle and probably would have made the line had he veered to his right rather than cutting back against the grain. His offload to Tom Donnelly was spilled but from the scrum, Neemia Tialata produced the effort of his career to shunt the French back and spin them, with Jerome Kaino able to fall on the ball and claim the try.
It was an effort that Tialata needed as there had been a few uncomfortable moments for him in the opening half hour. The French scrum was ominously good in that period and had the All Blacks reeling backwards and popping up for air when they could.
But it wasn't good enough to knock the All Blacks out of their rhythm. Jane scored a glorious individual try when he beat his man for pace after picking up a pass off his toes and then chipped and gathered.
Conrad Smith had the final word when he danced down the blind after the ball squirmed loose from a ruck and France were done in.
The All Blacks are back.
