France – New Zealand. Technique: How the Blues adapted to the surprising offensive strategy of the All Blacks

If pre-match press conferences are regularly the scene of a concert of tongue-in-cheek, it must be emphasized that Fabien Galthié had not succumbed to this practice before this France – New Zealand. Thus, the coach of the XV of France gave a long speech (more than two minutes!) about the strategic fight that his team were going to wage, with supporting figures. “There will be around thirty kicking games, including around twenty direct duels since there are no more escorts, Galthié had thus predicted, implicitly justifying the selection of Romain Buros at the back. We realize that this new rule enlarges the playing space, creates a new air space first on the duels but then on the free balls because these duels in the air cause a lot of free balls which are K balls .-O. Against the Blacks who are very good in these duels, we expect a big fight.”

So, should we think that the statisticians of the French XV completely failed, or on the contrary that this pre-match outburst from Mr. “Galette” encouraged the All Blacks to urgently change their strategy? We would rather go for the second option, really… “In the end, they only kicked the ball sixteen times, noted Fabien Galthié, while consulting the statistics live from the press conference on his smartphone. They really used a different strategy against us, because it's not at all what they did in the previous matches, or we didn't see it. And we were surprised.” Thus, out of the twenty aerial duels calculated by Galthié, the XV of France ultimately only had two to negotiate (one for Buros, the other for Ramos), the Kiwis consequently carrying the ball twice as much as the Blues ( 656 runs versus 311; 239 passes versus 91, 137 rucks versus 68).

Dupont – Bielle-Biarrey, French hunters

We could then have feared that, thus strategically surprised, the Blues would logically concede defeat. Except that… Whether they were constrained or forced in this, it was by regrouping around their old principles of dispossession – and by modifying their kicking game during the break, moving from occupation to pressure – that the Tricolores have sculpted the base of their victory. The defense (sometimes at the extreme limit of the breaking point) well reorganized after Antoine Dupont's refocusing at the break (by asking his partners to circulate more around the rucks) allowed the Blues to absorb the shock of a high-intensity match, aided by a “kick and rush” all the more formidable because, like the Japanese a week earlier, the All Blacks released crazy energy during their long periods of possession. They then logically stripped their back of the field in which the Blues had plenty of time to launch their lightning counterattacks. We are thinking here, obviously, of the turning point of the match which was the try of Louis Bielle-Biarrey (51st), following a recovery by Ramos and an immediate use of the space left free behind the New Zealanders (probably guilty of the sin of pride in refusing the use of the foot after ten sterile periods of play). But also to many other efforts made by the French “hunters”, even if they were not always paid, like this rescue of Savea in front of the duo Bielle-Biarrey – Dupont (75th) spoiled by a mistake on the Ollivon ground.

The fact remains that this all-terrain pressure was one of the constants of the Blues' performance, illustrated wonderfully by this penalty hit at the back of the field by Ramos and which could have come out with a dead ball, without an enormous sprint from Antoine Dupont which forced Will Jordan to urgently flatten in his in-goal (16th). Without the immense effort of the blue captain, this ball could have been synonymous with a scrum in the French 22 meters. As proof of the character and good physical health of a French XV which had the merit of clinging to its DNA in recent years, when it found itself pushed to its limits…