In the opening game of the World Cup, the All Blacks conceded four successive penalties in the second half when their ball carrier was isolated and turned over by France.
It was a masterclass in defensive strategy from the French and a victory for their brilliant pack, all of whom seemed entirely comfortable over the ball and adept at getting into technically perfect positions to steal possession.
For the All Blacks, it was a sobering lesson about how careful they will need to be at this tournament whenever they look to use the full width of the field.
It was all a bit too easy for Les Bleus in the end, who appeared to have come into the game with a deeply considered and highly strategic plan about how they would frustrate and then deconstruct the All Blacks.
They spent most of the first 40 minutes kicking away possession. They didn’t seem to want the ball and Antoine Dupont was happy to box kick long and effectively tell the All Blacks to do with it what they wanted.
And what the All Blacks wanted to do was kick it back. And so they did. Again and again and the first 40 minutes were curiously cagey with Beauden Barrett and Richie Mo’unga seemingly determined to not counter attack under any circumstances.
Come the second half, France were able to squeeze the All Blacks into making a few mistakes, build scoreboard pressure and then force New Zealand into playing catch-up rugby.
Once the New Zealanders were in that mode, trying to play wider, they became easy turnover targets for the French, leaving All Blacks coach Ian Foster to lament: “Getting isolated against France… they’re very good at attacking the ball.”
The solution for the All Blacks, it may seem, is to ditch their preferred ball-in-hand game and become as conservative as every other leading team at this World Cup and keep kicking possession away.
It’s clearly working for France, Ireland, South Africa and England and the stats out of the first two rounds of the tournament showed there was an average of 56 kicks per game – which is the highest figure since the 1996 World Cup.
England have built their entire game plan on kicking the ball away, with their attack coach Richard Wrigglesworth saying after the 34-12 win against Japan, “We are not happy with where we are attack-wise.
It’s not in New Zealand’s DNA to spend 80 minutes kicking the ball away.
“But that is not to do with the kicking game. It is not separate from it, either. It is all part of the same stuff. We want to kick the ball brilliantly so we either get the ball back brilliantly or we kick to score.
“It’s definitely better to kick for position than lose the ball. What we have seen in this World Cup so far, the most successful teams have had a very skilled, efficient kicking game. We are working on ours to make sure it is in the best position it can be.”
But it’s not in New Zealand’s DNA to spend 80 minutes kicking the ball away. They want an effective kicking strategy, and they have, despite appearances, always been one of the most prolific kicking teams in the world game.
They are never going to play like England, though. There will always be balance in their game as they have too many natural ball runners and gifted athletes in their team to not want to get the ball into their hands and have them running at the defence.
So the key to New Zealand being more effective at this World Cup is not conforming to the same kick-heavy strategy as everyone else, but to double down on their running game and be prepared to be one of the few teams at this World Cup that is happier playing with the ball than without.
What that means in practice is that they have to ignite their counter-attack strategy and be prepared to run the ball back when it is kicked to them.
The failure to do so in Paris was a big reason why they failed to win the game. Not only were France equipped with a longer kick game which saw them benefit territorially from the prolonged bouts of aerial ping-pong, the fact the All Blacks didn’t run back at them once in the first half meant that the overall ball in play time the ball was a mere 27 minutes.
That was the real killer for the All Blacks. Their gameplan is built on producing high amounts of aerobic content so that fatigue becomes a factor in the last quarter.
They want the game to open up, for defences to be unstructured as they remain the best team on the planet at playing instinctive rugby that is about exploiting space.
That’s New Zealand’s happy place – a broken game, with tired defenders. Give them that scenario and they are deadly because their athletes are conditioned to run for 80 minutes and even the big men know how to finish off a two-on-one.
Against France, with so little aerobic content, there was no fatigue in the final quarter so when the All Blacks tried to play the ball wide, the French defenders were able to get where they needed to be and the penalties came.
Whether the French defenders would have been able to pick off so many turnover penalties if the ball had been in play for 40 minutes-plus as it was when the All Blacks ran the Wallabies ragged in Melbourne earlier this year, is the great unknown.
It’s hard to make fair comparisons given the gulf in world rankings between Namibia and France, but against the former, the All Blacks gave a better glimpse of how they really want to play at this World Cup.
But certainly, the longer the ball is in play, the more it suits the All Blacks, which is why veteran hooker Dane Coles told media ahead of playing Namibia: “Jordie [Barrett] yesterday talked about the time in play with the ball [against France] was just 27 minutes.
“That’s something we’ve got to be better at. If we get time to play we have to make it count, and we didn’t do that.
“And the kicking game. I’ll stay in my lane here, but the way they kicked, I don’t reckon we reacted that smartly to it. We kicked a lot. I think that’s been addressed, and we’ve just got to be better and work harder to get back to have a run, or to kick, or whatever that picture looks like.”
Coles was clearly singing from the same song-sheet as the coaching staff, who were unhappy with the amount of kicking in Paris, something which was redressed in the next game against Namibia.
It’s hard to make fair comparisons given the gulf in world rankings between Namibia and France, but against the former, the All Blacks gave a better glimpse of how they really want to play at this World Cup.
They incessantly ran from deep and had the confidence to back themselves to keep the ball alive through multiple phases and create space through the speed of their ball carriers and timing of their passing.
It was an impressive display of running rugby from the All Blacks, one which led to Namibia coach Allister Coetzee to say: “I want to compliment New Zealand – they played in a way I haven’t seen an All Blacks team play like that for a long time, the way they took the game to us and put us under pressure with their skill-set, running a bit more than usual.
“We got caught on the inside a couple of times but that is typically how New Zealand play. They had a solid set-piece and they used the width of the field.”
And so what lies ahead is a fascinating test of the All Blacks conviction in their ability to run themselves to victory in this tournament.
The rest of the contenders are trying to kick their way to glory and keep things structured and slow. They want open and fast and the clash of styles will be fascinating, and the All Blacks believe, will ultimately prove rewarding for them.
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