You’ve got to hand it to the French – they certainly do things differently. Instead of, say, lying low and telling the world that the All Blacks deserve to be 1/10 favourites for this weekend’s Rugby World Cup final at Eden Park, they announce that they’ve spotted some glaring weaknesses in the All Blacks’ armoury.
Complacency is possibly a bigger threat to New Zealand than France, although the fact that the French have ended their World Cup journey twice in the past three tournaments should prevent them from underestimating their opposition on Sunday morning.
But any possibility that they may go into the game with their eyes half-open has been removed by the strange announcement from French defence coach David Ellis that Les Bleus have pinpointed some areas that can be exploited.
“The All Blacks have different defensive systems and there are more weaknesses than we found in the Welsh system and also in the Australian system,” he said.
“We feel there are certain areas of their defence we can exploit. There are things that we found out and we are quite capable of exploiting those weaknesses.”
Forewarned is forearmed, eh? Expect the All Blacks to run out convincing winners and, given that France have been their nemesis on several occasions in the past, New Zealand will hardly take their foot off the pedal when the game has been decided.
So come Sunday lunchtime Irish time a few French ghosts will have been well and truly exorcised.
Or we’re a bunch of Dutchmen.
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