FRANCE 27 ALL BLACKS 13 — Read more: All Blacks v France as it happened
By Liam Napier at Stade de France
They lost their opening World Cup battle for the first time in history but the All Blacks remain confident they can regroup and respond
All Blacks v France result: Ian Foster cool-headed after opening Rugby World Cup loss
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Successive defeats to the Springboks at Twickenham two weeks ago, and this loss at a heaving Stade de France, further plummet expectations surrounding the All Blacks.
A series of disruptive injuries to Tyrel Lomax, Shannon Frizell, Jordie Barrett and Sam Cane, with the captain forced to withdraw on the eve of the World Cup opener, haven’t helped.
On a sweltering Friday night in the French capital the All Blacks didn’t help themselves either with a 12-4 penalty count and Will Jordan’s second-half yellow card proving costly as France rode their passionate crowd to pull well clear.
Despite collecting another unwanted record in his turbulent tenure All Blacks coach Ian Foster attempted to project confidence his side can win their remaining three pool matches against Namibia, Uruguay and Italy to reach the knockouts and, then, rise for the quarterfinal occasion against the top side from Pool B.
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“I don’t think we have to rebuild. Stats are stats and I understand all that but in the past, we’ve won all our pool games and not necessarily won a tournament. The goal is to win the tournament,” Foster said.
“Let’s be frank this game was always massive. We know how strong France are and we wanted to go and get excited about playing. You saw that ambition from us in the way we started both halves. Whenever we had an opportunity to play we were efficient at taking it. We were denied opportunities to attack them in their half.
“There will be some aspects we have to rebuild and get better. There’s some good lessons but we’re not down in the shed. We’re frustrated we lost a game. We fired some good bullets at them. We just didn’t fire enough.”
Stand-in skipper Ardie Savea, who featured in a remodelled loose forward trio that included Tupou Vaa’i’s first start at blindside flanker, pointed to the Springboks’ road four years ago in Japan as evidence the All Blacks could construct a turnaround.
“South Africa lost in 2019 the first game against us and went on to win the competition,” Savea said. “For us we’re frustrated we lost tonight. We lost the battle but there’s still a war to be won. To win that we’ve got to win the next three and to do that you worry about the next one and take the lessons from this game.
“France squeezed us. We weren’t good enough in certain moments in the game. We’ve got to rectify that and move forward and build our confidence.
“Tonight it’s Okay for the boys to feel the hurt and the loss. It’s up to us as leaders to bring the boys together. We’ve got to shift our focus to what’s next and improve our game. It’s important for us to regroup and reset.”
The All Blacks will rue their failure to convert a dominant period at the backend of the first half when they attacked France’s line but could not strike after Codie Taylor’s wayward pass into touch and Ethan de Groot taking on the line and losing the ball.
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Foster’s men also lost the aerial and breakdown battle, with France increasingly dominant over the ball as the All Blacks didn’t commit enough numbers to cleaning bodies while attempting to chase the game.
The scrum, where de Groot conceded two first-half penalties knocked over by French fullback Thomas Ramos, is another regressing area in need of immediate attention.
“It was frustrating some of the pictures we painted at scum time. We’ve got to be smarter at that,” Foster said. “Getting isolated against France they’re very good at attacking the ball.”
After copping three yellow cards in their heaviest defeat at Twickenham the discipline message is again sure to be top of mind, too.
“There were too many penalties that came in the last 25 minutes of the game. You’ve got to give France some credit for that,” Foster said.
“Will was a bit clumsy with a couple of aerial things and the second one hurt us. It’s been an area we’ve worked particularly well on this year. That yellow card came at a bad time against a team that liked to kick a lot and exploit the backfield which makes you work hard in that patch.
“It was everything we anticipated. The French threw a lot at us. They were the better team on the night. They managed to squeeze us, particularly in that last quarter and force us to play under a lot of pressure.
“While it was a big one-off game for us it doesn’t change a lot. We’ve now got to find another direction through this pool and get excited about the next three games.”
Cane’s exit forced the All Blacks to bring Brodie Retallick back off the bench a week earlier than expected to expose the folly of not carrying an additional loose forward in the World Cup squad. Foster indicated Cane’s back strain – suffered while lifting a jumper at training one day before the match - is not a major concern.
“He was a lot better today and moving well tonight but because we didn’t have clear information on how bad that back was we made that decision to pull him.”
At this point, as the prospect of an early World Cup exit strengthens, the All Blacks clearly need their best team to compete with the world’s elite nations.
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.
