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
By Liam Napier in Paris
A creaking scrum. A concerning final-quarter collapse. Familiar discipline and fresh aerial issues to confront.
It’s easy to view their rebuild foundations crumbling. The All Blacks, though, believe tweaks rather than a radical transformation will spark their Rugby World Cup revival.
From 13-9 to 27-13, the All Blacks conceded 18 unanswered points to suffer their first World Cup pool defeat at Stade de France.
While influential reinforcements - Sam Cane, Jordie Barrett, Shannon Frizell, Tyrel Lomax - will return in the coming weeks to significantly improve the New Zealand side’s prospects, the list of improvements is long and the road to success from here is fraught.
For 50-odd minutes the All Blacks competed with France in an intense, hostile atmosphere. Against the world-leading teams, though, that’s not nearly enough and the All Blacks know it.
New Zealand coach Ian Foster. Photo / Photosport
“We’re going to pull apart that game and take everything we can out of it,” All Blacks coach Ian Foster noted as his side travelled from Paris to Lyon to prepare for Saturday’s second pool match against Namibia in Toulouse. “There were a couple of home truths in that last quarter and we need to own that.”
The concern for the All Blacks is that France weren’t at their best and they didn’t need to stray from the blueprint to comfortably pull away in the final quarter.
France steadfastly stuck to their long, kick-heavy tactics. They successfully targeted the All Blacks scrum to pick off points, and as Foster’s men tried to chase the game, France pilfered the breakdown with relative ease.
From Twickenham to Paris, the All Blacks did not rectify two key pillars. The scrum, where Ethan de Groot conceded two penalties that cost six points, is one. Frustrating discipline, which points to buckling under pressure, is the other. Two weeks after copping three yellow cards, the All Blacks dished up 12 penalties to France’s four. Such was their increasing dominance, the French didn’t concede one penalty in the second half.
Before losing tighthead prop Lomax to a nasty thigh gash, the All Blacks reformed their scrum to a reliable platform. Against the Springboks and France, though, this focal contest has sharply regressed.
Interpretation challenges are evident - yet the onus is on the All Blacks to find a quick fix. Set-piece strength is a pillar on which World Cups are won and lost. If the All Blacks can’t re-establish a stable scrum, they have little hope of winning a quarter-final against South Africa or Ireland.
“We’ve got to be better and better consistently at our set piece, particularly our scrum. I’ve got a lot of faith in our scrum but we’ve got to be smarter at adapting to the tricks that go on up there,” Foster said.
“Ethan is a quality player, a quality scrummager. There’s a couple of pictures that he’s painting that refs are picking up on that we have to adapt to. There’s no doubt we’ve got some areas we need to tweak. That’s not knocking his strength as a scrummager. We’ve got to be able to adapt to what the opposition is doing to us and not show some cues to refs that makes it looks like it’s us that’s doing it wrong.
“It’s easy to feel flat after a game like that and think where are the answers going to come from in the last part of that game but we’re really confident about that. We got tested. We know a lot of what we’re doing is working really well but it highlighted a couple of areas.”
France were content to continuously kick deep. Those tactics eventually paid dividends by pinning the All Blacks in their end for much of the second half, with Will Jordan’s yellow card for one of two clumsy highball challenges proving costly.
While he largely praised his side’s kicking game - pointing to Mark Telea’s opening try from Beauden Barrett’s cross-field nudge and Ardie Savea’s chip for Jordan - Foster conceded the All Blacks were too conservative from the backfield on the counterattack.
“We went into our shell a little bit in dealing with some of their kicks. Maybe we could’ve played with a bit more ambition in that area. In that last quarter, we lost a bit of faith in the kick to our openside wing. We got penalised three times when the ball was contestable for us. We need to be smarter in that space. In many ways, we lost a bit of confidence in using the kick that’s been really effective for us this year.
Matthieu Jalibert celebrates France’s win over the All Blacks. Photo / Photosport
“Ultimately you can’t lose the penalty battle 12-4 against the team that wants to kick their goals and play territory and squeeze you. That’s a second test in a row that’s happened at key times. We’ve got to take notice of that.”
It’s not all doom for the All Blacks. They managed more carry metres (654 to 422) and beat twice as many defenders (32 to 16) to suggest their attack is far from broken.
Despite successive defeats and further injury setbacks inciting angst, Foster maintains he will continue with rotation plans. Italy, following their opening 52-8 pool victory over Namibia, ultimately lie in wait to determine the All Blacks’ knockout fate in three weeks.
“That’s shaping as a massive game for us. For us and France and Italy are always a team we have to beat. We’ve got a lot of respect for them and the way they’ve been playing the last 12 months. We know that’s the big challenge ahead. We’ve got to use the next three weeks with one game and a bye to make sure we go into that Italy game really fizzing.
“The plan stays intact. The reality is it hasn’t changed a lot of the things we’re planning to do the next two or three weeks.”
Liam Napier has been a sports journalist since 2010, and his work has taken him to World Cups in rugby, netball and cricket, boxing world title fights and Commonwealth Games.
