Wynne Gray: A lot to be said for a slab of grass

A ground is a ground is a ground, right? The grassy rectangle can differ slightly in dimension, as it did apparently in Milan on this All Black tour, but there are many examples where one slab of grass makes a great deal of difference.

Try talking to all those sides who have perished at Eden Park for the past 15 years or those who struggled at Carisbrook until the Springboks found the secret.

For a scary amount of time Twickenham was getting close to Fortress status, the Convicts were difficult to deal with in their Sydney lair and the Boks always seemed tougher at one of their high-altitude arenas.

Now the French can develop that same sort of aura about Stade Velodrome in Marseille where they play the All Blacks tomorrow morning (NZ time). They beat the tourists there in 2000 and have lost just once in that arena since.

The Tricolores squared the series in New Zealand this year and have tuned up for tomorrow's international with some impressive winning work against the Springboks and Samoa.

That was some mana for All Black coach Graham Henry, who has tried to lower public expectation by lauding the French and warning of his side's difficulties. His side was jaded, he proclaimed, and the New Zealand rugby public needs to reduce their expectations.

Come again? Many of the side took a serious rest during the national championship and they picked a whopping 33 players for a five- test, one festival-game programme. No midweek matches to interrupt the test schedule and an international against Italy slap bang in the middle of the tour, allowing most of the top team to rest.

Being together since early June and playing 14 tests around the globe is tiring, but this is what they do. They are very experienced, far more so than the 2000 All Black mob whose fullback, Christian Cullen, was the most seasoned as he claimed his 50th cap in defeat. Four of the current mob are well past that mark and another quartet have nearly claimed their 50th caps.

The 2000 side had excellent players such as Cullen, Tana Umaga, Andrew Mehrtens, Justin Marshall and Greg Somerville and incredibly, nine years later, a dozen of the 2000 side are still playing around the world.

When they stepped on to the Stade Velodrome that night nine years ago, they discovered a new rugby world.

November 2000 was something else as the All Blacks played their mid-evening test against the most vibrant, noisy, colourful backdrop you get in world rugby.

It was a crazy atmosphere, one to rival the World Cup final at Ellis Park in 1995, the All Blacks test to celebrate the Springboks' return to the global scene three years earlier, the seething mayhem at the River Plate Stadium in Buenos Aires in 2001 or the raucous colour at Croke Park two years ago.

Back in 2000, the All Blacks were met by a determined French side and a boisterous 65,000 crowd in Marseille. Among the evening revellers were rocket-launchers, flame- throwers, roosters that had been smuggled into the ground and some spectators who had gone just for the rugby. Smokebombs and brass bands simply added to the crazy atmosphere while several sprawling fights - ah, those were the days - punctuated the on-field dramas.

Only McCaw of the present mob will have experienced anything like this before when he played his third test at the River Plate Stadium against Argentina in late 2001. The All Blacks were spooked by the whole occasion in that test in Buenos Aires and flummoxed by Pumas' fervour, which was underpinned by the agitated provocative encouragement of the crowd. Similar threats will have to be dealt with tomorrow in Marseille if the All Blacks are to ride out their last torrid exam in a difficult season.