France outgain NZ 529 metres to 400

Beat 20 defenders to a measly 4 by Nz...and make 10 clean breaks to 3....more passes, more offloads and lose. Why, well because they made mistakes, but also because of Barrett's tactical kicking onto the Fijian er French wings who couldn't handle the high ball. The new French scrummie Baptiste Serin was sensational. It just goes to show good young players take their chances, they don't need a season of failure to find their feet. The first time in a while that the opposition backs were more dangerous than their AB opponents.

 Put Baptiste in the Bok backline and he would be a flop. Faf is in any case twice the player. Van Zyl looked good also. How we have seen the last of P aige.

 More dangerous ? 3 tries to 1 begs to differ .

 This is biased.

The french rugby is now missioned with conquering back their fans' heart and souls.

They played in a way that is expected to please their fans, leaving them with the desire to come back to attend the next game.

The way of playing is not meant to win but to lose pleasantly in the eyes of the fans.

High volumes of runs, a lot of initiative, a 50/50, all or nothing approach etc This is part of the mission to regain their fans.

It is loser rugby gift wrapped for their fans.

Already, the six nations might be hard landing for them as they might play 4,5 or 6th position.

 ABs mainly counter punched in this game, fortunately it was enough as their defence was good enough in spite of a high number of tackles missed & a high penalty count. The line out was a major plus.
What was puzzling was why Barrett persisted with the tactical kicks when it was clear it was not working (except for a few occasions - one of which resulted in a try). They gave up a lot of possession and this increased the amount of defence they played.
To me it looked like the ABs were running low on gas this was shown in the last quarter where they couldn't take over the game as they usually do when the subs came in. They managed to control the game but not with the extra gear they usually have.
Another problem was the backs did not get released as often as usual. Overall the attack stats look like those of their usual opposition not the ABs, e.g. Clean breaks 6 to Frances 17; Offloads 7 to 31. Carries 91 to 145, etc.
They won ugly as the saying goes & that's what it takes sometimes. Well done boys & now it's time for a well deserved break.