All Blacks vs France takes: Jalibert's A-game, All Blacks' high risk style

The All Blacks outscored France by five tries to four and escaped with a 34-32 victory in Dave Rennie’s first Test in charge in Christchurch to start their Nations Championship campaign.

It was not perfect by any means with errors flowing as the high octane shape left accuracy at the door.

The high risk, high reward game plan did work to overcome an early deficit and build a nine-point buffer heading into the final 10 minutes.

Here are quick takes following the win over the French.

All Blacks’ launch brave new style

After a slow start marred by discipline and a yellow card to Ruben Love, the All Blacks launched the kitchen sink at France midway in the first half with a lightening fast attack based on rapid recycling. 94 per cent of the All Blacks rucks were between 0-3 seconds in the first half as they kicked just six times.

There was intent to launch wave-after-wave and blunt the French through weight of possession. When it got going, it worked, with long phases pushing the French to the brink multiple times. There was a lack of polish, understandably, as the newly configured starting team didn’t yet have the inner working knowledge of each other.

But at meant at times they played at a speed almost beyond themselves, with turnovers starting to feed into the French counter-attacking machine. France’s first try in the second half came after one, but then they struck back after another brilliant stretch of overwhelming the defence.

It was certainly bold and brave, ignoring the sensible option at times and doubling down on tempo and speed. It was the red line approach, if the tempo stays high enough, eventually France will crack somewhere. The challenge is keeping the accuracy.

The new style of all-out attack suited the indoor venue, so it remains to be seen if it will be replicated elsewhere.

Matthieu Jalibert brought his A-game

The flyhalf certainly played out of his skin, up for the challenge of out-gunning the All Blacks in a shootout. He set up the first try to Penaud to give France a 7-0 lead and had a hand in all of the French tries just about.

The No.10 was clearly the best player for France, and outplayed Love on points all things considered. Love had his moments, but an early yellow card meant it was a slow start for the All Blacks without their main guy.

Jalibert had a couple of smart kicks in behind into the All Blacks in-goal that weren’t rewarded, the second one well within the grasp of centre Fabien Brau-Boirie who fumbled the ball over the dead ball line. He perhaps would have liked Louis Bielle-Biarrey to be on the end of those kicks.

His one key mistake came off a risky pass from his fullback inside his only 22 after France had fielded a kick. The knock-on gave the All Blacks a scrum from which they extended the lead to 29-25. Jordan’s second try took the lead to 34-32.

Other than that moment he was majestic, showing drive and energy all around the park. He willed France back from the brink to barge over a handful of All Blacks to score a well-taken try.

He showed that he has elevated his game after leading Bordeaux to European glory twice, but perhaps needed more firepower around him to beat an experimental All Black team.

Roigard was the main man for All Blacks

It was Roigard who steadied the All Black ship when the sea got choppy. Named man-of-the-match, Roigard exposed France around the rucks, finding a couple of line breaks in the interior channels.

Running the attack he was quick, with the ruck speed kept at a blazing tempo. His second try came from a cutout pass back down the blind which found Jordie Barrett on the edge, before a great offload found Roigard on the inside.

Without Roigard’s hand the All Blacks perhaps don’t find a way tonight, and it went to show just how important the No.9 is to the All Blacks now.

When Love returned from the sin bin the All Blacks play did lift and find a groove, with the No.10 key in opening up France a few times with his quick hands and running game.

As a first start goes, it was impressive and promises a lot more. The Roigard-Love combination looks to be a winner for Rennie and hopefully they are given as many starts as possible.

Eight vs four in Bordeaux vs Hurricanes mini preview 

To be clear, this wasn’t Bordeaux versus the Hurricanes, but it was a Bordeaux-heavy French line up with eight starters from the club in the starting XV.

Conversely, just four Hurricanes made the starting XV for the All Blacks with Rennie choosing to sacrifice the cohesion they could have brought into the fixture in order to put the first building block down on his team.

They did have five on the bench, with an all-Hurricanes reserve front row along with Billy Proctor and debutant Fehi Fineanganofo.

Numia, Aumua and Tosi went very well at scrum time coming on, while Proctor and Fineanganofo were physical without getting too many chances on attack.

The Hurricanes 9-10-12 core were influential at the end of the day. Roigard and Love certainly opened up France a lot and Jordie Barrett had two try assists, his first to Will Jordan a long ball and his second a nice offload inside to Roigard.

The All Blacks were trying new game plans and new systems with an experimental line-up. France were missing a number of key starters also, so it is what it is, another loss for the French.