The All Blacks are braced for a backlash from France in Paris on Saturday after the 47-3 pasting the tourists handed the home side in the first autumn Test match last week.
Assistant coach Wayne Smith said France boss Bernard Laporte had been right to ring the changes after his side suffered their largest home defeat in Lyon, which saw the French players roundly booed and whistled off the pitch.
”France are under a lot of pressure from the French to try to play a bit more,” said Smith, who was head coach of New Zealand for the 2000 and 2001 seasons, with a record of 12 wins from 17 games.
”They had to make some changes. It shows they’re being proactive. They look as if they’ve stiffened up the attack. We expect them to take us on up front and be aggressive.”
Smith said the All Blacks were ”expecting France to be a lot better. They would have hated to be smacked like that and criticised by their own people, public and media”.
The former flyhalf, capped 17 times by the All Blacks in the early 1980s, added that France’s problems would not be immediately solved on the training ground.
”I think training’ll be irrelevant. It’s a mental question: who’ll turn up on the day. In any case, I think they’ll throw everything against us.”
Smith also recalled the whammy served up by France in 1999.
Humiliated 54-7 in New Zealand, France stunned the All Blacks by beating them 43-31 three months later in the semifinals of the Rugby World Cup.
”There are so many examples of turnarounds that we have to make sure all the starting 15 go out there and really give it to them.”
On that note, Smith warned that the New Zealand side was raring to go in what will be the 100th meeting between the two sides.
”The players are in really good nick. The feeling is good, the players look fresh and ready to go.
”Hopefully that will manifest itself on Saturday with a better performance than in Lyon. We have to go into the match with the same passion and intensity as we did last week.”
Despite completely outclassing France in the seven-try demolition in Lyon, Smith pinpointed the line-outs and ”linkage” between backs and forwards as two areas that needed improvement.
”Our general attack is good,” he said. ”We have made improvements to our ability to counter quickly, but maybe that has been at the cost of our set-piece moves.
”We have to try to be more accurate in the execution of moves and our linkage. And the line-outs were not what they should have been in Lyon.
”Our job is to make sure we go out at 9pm on Saturday and put in a performance we can be proud of.” — AFP
