All Blacks record tight, tactical first test victory

Press, 16 November 1981, Page 36

All Blacks record tight, tactical first test victory

NZPA staff correspondent Toulouse The All Blacks lifted themselves when it most mattered to record a 13-9 win over France in a tight, tactical first test at Toulouse yesterday.

The memory of the All Blacks’ stumbling performances in their lead-up games against French selections receded as they, efficiently executed a tactical plan based on their forward superiority. The New Zealanders used a 19-14 line-out advantage to place pressure on the French in their own territory and although the kicking involved in the tactic blighted the game as a spectacle, it was undoubtedly effective. The French, for their part, insisted on playing a similar sort of forward-based, kicking game and in so doing played into the hands of the All Blacks.

The match had two distinct phases for New Zealand —. a first half when it could well have been more than 106 up at the break, and a second spell in which it lost its momentum and allowed France to sneak back into contention in the final 30 minutes.

it could have gone either way,” he said. As it was, the All Blacks capably soaked up the pressure from a French forward pack which had fine individuals in the flanker, Jean Luc Joinel, the lock, Alain Lorieux, and the hooker, Philippe Dintrans, but, over all, was guilty of a lack of control. And in the final two minutes of normal time, the All Blacks through Andy Haden and Murray Mexted won three important lineouts in succession off the French throw-in to stem their final challenge.

When the French full-back, Serge Gabernet, dropped a goal after a free kick in the fifty-seventh minute to bring the score back to 9-10, the game was wide open. The All Black coach, Peter Burke, admitted after the match that at that stage lie had been a worried man.

shone in French pack “At 10-9 and with the French putting pressure on,