{"id":17815,"date":"2026-07-01T05:42:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T17:42:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=17815"},"modified":"2026-07-01T05:42:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T17:42:46","slug":"theyll-bring-everything-all-blacks-dont-consider-france-a-b-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=17815","title":{"rendered":"‘They’ll bring everything’ – All Blacks don’t consider France a ‘B’ team"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It is still the French.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Regardless of who is skipping the trip to Christchurch, the All Blacks are still expecting a world class France side for their first test of the year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Much has been made of the decision to rest nine players from the Top 14 final, including two of the planet’s premier players in Louis Bielle-Biarrey and Antoine Dupont.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Dupont in particular has come under criticism for his seemingly perpetual absence from Aotearoa.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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However, All Blacks assistant coach Neil Barnes does not buy the notion of a secondary side, stating any French team is dangerous.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“I’m not buying into this rubbish that they’re bringing over a B team or anything like that. They are one of the best teams in the world, they’ll bring everything. They’ve got great depth in that country, and we’ve got to applaud what they’ve created.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“I don’t care who they bring, it’s a French team, they’ll be able to play, they’ll be physical, and we’re going to have to be at our very best to beat them.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In their first full week of camp under coach Dave Rennie, Barnes said the short turnaround time will be no excuse for a sloppy performance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“Rust can be an issue, but we have the All Blacks standards to live up to so it’s been all go. The machine doesn’t stop moving.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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First-five Damian McKenzie said there was too much class in the French ranks to underestimate them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“They’ve got some very exciting players, (Matthieu) Jalibert at 10, he’s an exciting player, and they like to play an expensive game of rugby. Particularly here in Christchurch, under the roof as well, I’m sure we’re going to see a lot of that, see it’s going to be a tough test.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Barnes reiterated Jason Ryan’s comments that Rennie had brought a simplistic approach to the team.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“Being very clear, very simple, allowing players to take ownership.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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With a physically fierce encounter predicted in Christchurch, Barnes was adamant that his pack would not be out-muscled by the French.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“We won’t be playing second to anyone in that field.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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All Blacks vs France<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Kick off- 7.05pm, Saturday July 4<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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One NZ Stadium, Christchurch<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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RNZ<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is still the French. Regardless of who is skipping the trip to Christchurch, the All Blacks are still expecting a world class France side for their first test of the year. Much has been made of the decision to rest nine players from the Top 14 final, including two of the planet’s premier players […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":17816,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17815"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17817,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17815\/revisions\/17817"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}