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All Black hooker Anton Oliver found some perspective on his team's shock defeat several hours after being at a loss to answer television questions from his former 1999 World Cup team-mate Andrew Mehrtens, now working as a broadcaster.
"I have just finished reading Massacre at Passchendaele and also
All Quiet on the Western Front, and in both of those books they describe no man's land quite clearly and vividly," Oliver said.
"And that is what it felt like in the players' changing room and in their hearts and minds. It feels desolate, decay, the putrid smell of, I don't know, death.
"That is a bit dramatic but you kind of know what I mean.
"It is just nothing, and no man's land is a place where nothing exists and that is what's happening, that is what it feels like."
During the week Oliver felt the All Blacks would win their Cardiff quarter-final if they played to their potential.
He thought they played well for 30 minutes of the first half, and had they gained points after the interval the momentum would have returned.
"But the French defended really well, they were very effective at putting minimal people in the ruck, slowing the ball down and then spreading their defence," Oliver said. "Then they pushed up strong and it forced our backs into making rushed passes."
That style had been a characteristic of the All Blacks' play but they got frustrated and became ensnared in a game of aerial ping-pong they did not want to play.
"We wanted to attack and use the ball and I think some of the pressure and some of the points the French put on us were from our mistakes or defensive pressure.
"They scored a nice set-piece try from their 10m line but the other ones were just turning us around from pressure on defence, what we usually do to other teams."
When Oliver was substituted he was still confident of victory, but the All Blacks were denied penalties or else made mistakes in France's red zone.
"They were not uncharacteristic mistakes because we have been making them the whole tournament, forced passes and knock-ons, and we have been talking about this the whole tournament, of cutting them out, and here we go in the big game and it didn't happen, we still made them."
The experienced hooker, who is quitting New Zealand rugby, said the side always had an attacking mindset. He did not know if the errors were the result of a lack of matchplay or any other factors.
Mehrtens, Oliver's new sidekick at the Toulon club, said: "These guys will be hurting so much. If people are hurting at home, these guys will be hurting far more.
"It is not a matter of saying 'sorry New Zealand', they will always feel they have let the country down, that is just natural.
"The country will survive but these guys have given everything, it has been their life and it will take them some time to get over it."
Mehrtens said it was difficult to remove his emotion while trying to analyse the game.
"I was starting to get niggly at the referee and I had to bite my tongue."