No surprise, the French team lost the top match in Pool A against the All Blacks (37-17) and will have to beat TONGA to qualify for the quarter-finals.
Despite a Haka that clearly displayed the motivation of our opponents, the French team had a good start to the match, stringing together a few plays that put the Kiwis under pressure, unfortunately without scoring any points, unlike their opponents who scored their first try on their initial play.
These first 15 minutes are just a summary of this encounter where the French tried to destabilize the New Zealanders, but in vain, as the pace and speed of execution imposed by the latter were well above our current capabilities.
The quick action of the Blacks, both offensively and defensively, resulted in numerous repositioning errors leading to missed tackles and fouls, allowing our opponent to score tries or obtain penalties.
Once again, our offensive play was deplorable; we are so predictable that the Kiwis consistently outnumbered us at impact points, rendering our strong phases ineffective.
Additionally, we faltered in the scrum and defense, which until now were two of our strong points, which is quite concerning for our next decisive match.
However, if we win in a week, we might see a positive aspect to this defeat, allowing us to face northern hemisphere nations in the final draw, which seems to be more manageable…
