NZ Herald's Rugby World Cup news show Beyond the Game sees Cheree Kinnear and Elliott Smith unpack the All Blacks' defeat to France in the opening match in Paris.
Video / NZ Herald / Sky Sport
Gregor Paul in Paris
War analogies are always misplaced in sport, but if the All Blacks are to have any chance at winning this World Cup, Ian Foster needs to channel his inner Winston Churchill, lock himself with his trusted lieutenants in a bunker and find a wayto rebuild and revamp his wounded troops.
Staying on the war theme, the All Blacks’ 27-13 defeat is the World Cup equivalent of the Allied troops’ retreat from Dunkirk.
A team that thought they were ready for what they would confront in Paris encountered an opponent that was better prepared and better equipped and sent the All Blacks packing.
It was sobering and it was at times galling. The All Blacks descended into that dreaded place they have come to occupy too often in the last 18 months – the one where their minds go blank, sending them into a sort of mental freefall where their discipline collapses.
Beauden Barrett and teammates appear dejected during the match against France. Photo / Getty Images
When they were in that mental red zone midway through the second half, the fug proved to be corrosive to basic skill execution.
A contest that was genuinely in the balance after 55 minutes, was over by 65 when France, sensing that the All Blacks were morphing into zombies, upped the tempo and intensity of their attack and cruised home.
“I think the hardest thing was when they won a moment,” said All Blacks first-five Richie Mo’unga.
“Then they won the next one and it was compounding on us and you need to stop at some point. You can’t get them a roll on like that otherwise you will pay for it.
“It is very hard [to break that pattern] in real-time. Because just like that you can lose a player and it closes your game. It stops you from playing the way you want to.
“So you try a little bit harder and trying a little bit harder isn’t always the way to go because you get inaccurate and then you give free ball to the French. They are very clinical at the ruck and the way they get on the ball.
“Our discipline let us down. I don’t know what the penalty count was and the amount of times Ramos was able to have a shot at goal or they were able to put pressure on us.”
But as chastening as this historic first defeat in a pool game was, so too were there reasons for optimism. Faint optimism that is, because while the All Blacks melted down at a micro level, there was a bit to like about their macro performance.
There was certainly no lack of ambition on attack and the All Blacks opened the French more than most teams manage.
Physically, with the exception of two scrums that may be illustrative of Ethan de Groot’s naivety at international level rather than a deeper, physical issue, the All Blacks stood up well enough in the crunchy bits.
“We had enough opportunities to win the game,” said Mo’unga. “There were two or three times in the first half when we weren’t able to score but we were right on the line.
“We were still ambitious in the way we played and at times it worked against us in the second half. The amount of opportunities we created I am very happy with that.
“The way we were able to score after half-time that was something we targeted. I am just gutted about our discipline and the way we were able to let France back in the game when we were applying all the pressure.”
And so there is hope that the All Blacks, chastened and frustrated, can find a way to rebuild in time for the quarterfinals.
There is reason to believe they are still a live contender, a team with the requisite physical attributes and creative talents to open defences and give themselves opportunities to score.
That’s a big, part of the modern game. They can do that bit against the best teams. Even in defeat, they proved that.
But the bigger part of modern rugby and the most critical part of World Cup rugby is being able to take those opportunities.
It’s the micro detail that matters. Being able to make that last pass; being able to hold that steady nerve when a big decision needs to be made.
And the lack of precision in the last 10 minutes in the first half probably hurt the All Blacks as much, if not more, than their second-half meltdown.
The All Blacks were running hot in that period. They had France, who were nervous and a little disjointed for much of the first half, scrambling around.
But the All Blacks had two big moments in which they didn’t stay calm and blew their chance to punish France.
Ethan de Groot tucked the ball under his arm to charge at the line and lost it in contact. It was a play where he should have slipped the ball out the back door.
And a few minutes later Codie Taylor panicked a little when he tried to flip the ball to his left when there was no one there to take it.
These were bad mistakes in the context of the game because they were try-scoring opportunities that should have been taken and the pressure would have built on France.
“You have got to take your opportunities,” lamented Sam Whitelock.
“You don’t get many. There were a couple of key moments where we didn’t execute our simple skills, whether that was pass and catch, or cleaning a ruck, we have to grow and be better.
“We have to have a good look at it and make sure those things are trending up.”
It could be said then that the All Blacks just lacked the fine detail. That they weren’t so far from beating France, and maybe they would have won had they been clinical and ruthless in the first half.
It takes quite the leap of faith to believe that though, because even though it was little things that the All Blacks got wrong in Paris, as everyone knows, the little things are really the big things at World Cups.
