Ali Williams: All Blacks will use greater variation

New Zealand All Blacks halfback Aaron Smith during the All Blacks team training session. Photo / Brett Phibbs.

My experience of World Cups was that it really didn't matter too much at all what happened in the pool rounds because everything changed in the knockout stages.

And by everything I mean everything. Tactically, mentally, physically it was a different competition and that's why I feel there are only a few things that can be taken from what we saw in the earlier games.

From an All Blacks perspective - if they beat France tomorrow morning - then I think they have a couple of obvious areas of their game they will want to keep building.

The first and most obvious is the way they use their lineout ball. In their pool games, they were pretty much exclusively using clean ball to launch strike moves out wide. I would imagine that was deliberate and planned, that they wanted to get the ball swept away and use it to get their timing and cohesion right.

But what we will most likely see now is greater variation. Typically, games at this stage of the competition tighten and everyone becomes more conservative.

That makes creating space that bit harder so I would expect the All Blacks to catch and drive some, if not a lot of their lineout ball in the earlier part of the game. They will keep it tight to keep the defence tight and that will also help them when they vary things and launch strike moves.

The other area they will be keen to improve is their scrummaging. It's an area they won't be happy with because they have not been functioning at their best so far.

What they know, though, is that a lot of improvement can be made in a relatively short period of time. Look at the Wallabies. They want that platform to be stable so they can vary the way they attack.

Talking of the Wallabies, there is no doubt they have had to fire a few bullets to get to where they are.

Their defence against Wales was stunning. But the issue is how much that will have taken out of them.

It was a real dog-fight for everyone in Pool A and there's no question it drained both Australia and Wales to qualify. But my impression - and I know a few of the Aussie boys quite well - is that they will flourish as a result.

I have caught up with a few of them and they are in good spirits. Moral is high and these guys have a tough edge about them. The only issue I can see is not in their forwards but with their backs.

It looks like a couple of them are carrying injuries and I'm not sure how long they will last. Also, if you look at the way they have been defending, they put either Michael Hooper or David Pocock in at first-five. It has worked really well for them so far but if injuries come, they will have some concerns about how they can restructure.