KEY POINTS:
In 100 days the All Blacks will step out for their first World Cup game, tomorrow they must decide how much of that tournament strategy to road test against France.
Every four years international coaches wrestle with the conundrum. Do they confine their blueprints to the training field
until the later stages of the Cup or do they operate a damn-the-torpedoes approach and rehearse their ideas throughout the tournament?
The All Blacks' philosophy under Graham Henry is to drip-feed some of their methods into games, to balance the conceal or reveal theories. They have 31 players and seven internationals to sift before they start the World Cup against Italy in Marseille.
"There is one school of thought which says you have to rehearse it, fine-tune it and be executing it well before you can use it and there is another school of thought which says do it at training but don't bring it into matches," assistant coach Wayne Smith said. "We're probably not one or the other, we're both.
"We'll execute sometimes. If you look at last season you can see patches of different sorts of games and that is probably to try and become good at something you haven't been good at it in the past."
The All Blacks subscribed to the concept that they had to test their ideas under the pressure of matchplay, there was no point in wondering "what if" at the end of any campaign. All the squad had play books and had access to animated versions of the team moves.
French coach Bernard Laporte was familiar with the All Blacks' style and the Eden Park hosts did not think the visitors would deviate too much tomorrow from the patterns they used in the Six Nations championship.
The quality of information counted for a bit but tests were usually decided by sides who completed the fundamentals properly, who combined accuracy with emotion. The All Blacks would use similar systems this season but alter all the codes, names and signals.
Change was always necessary because computer analysis was very sophisticated, there was a depth of information and a range of replays available to the staff on every team.
Several times last year the All Blacks felt the Wallabies had deciphered their calls and on occasions, the All Black staff had also cracked their opposition moves. But Smith said that was not a major emphasis for him as he watched a test develop, he felt more comfortable unpicking a test later.
This week was all about the All Blacks reacquainting themselves with the library of knowledge they had learned in previous seasons and adding some trimmings to offer problems for the French defence. Some weaknesses had been evident during the Super 14 and there was always work to be done on setpieces.
Smith detected a different attitude in the squad this season but he warned his players to expect the unexpected from the makeshift French side who might be even more unpredictable than normal for the Tricolores.
"When you play the French you have to expect the unexpected. You have to go out and use your eyes and communicate and adapt to what's happening,"said Smith.
"And that's especially the case this week because they have individuals in there who are going to do something different to the guys we have played previously."
* French wing Julien Laharrague has been replaced in tomorrow's team by Jean Francois Coux, because he missed training yesterday.
