By Liam Napier in Lyon

World rugby’s elite nations are now well-versed in the blueprint to beat the All Blacks. Slow the pace by any means necessary, minimise ball in play time, maintain
discipline and kick, kick, kick. How the All Blacks adapt and adjust to these frustrating squeeze tactics could define their teetering World Cup campaign.

Internal team data-driven analysis has emerged from RTE Sport’s Bernard Jackman that reveals France’s successive wins over the All Blacks, with their World Cup-opening success coming on the back of their 2021 victory in Paris, is based on tactical methods adopted by Ireland and the Springboks in recent years.

Everyone who viewed the All Blacks’ opening World Cup defeat noted France’s determination to kick at almost every opportunity – even from valuable turnover possession and when attacking in the All Blacks half. French flair predominantly gave way to le boot.

This strategy is based on tactics Ireland and South Africa used in victories against the All Blacks where both teams largely opted to hold the ball for no longer than 20 seconds or three phases.

Teams who adopt this tactic tend to beat the All Blacks. Attacking-minded sides, such as Australia, who often retain the ball for 40 seconds or longer tend to play into the All Blacks’ hands and lose.

The other less surprising statistic is that opposition who maintain their discipline, and give up seven penalties or fewer, enjoy a 75 per cent success rate against the All Blacks. France conceded four penalties in their latest victory.

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It’s no coincidence the world’s top three ranked nations are essentially playing the All Blacks in a similar vein that centres on set piece strength, discipline, peppering the All Blacks with kicks which challenges them to make the running of the game, to counterattack and take risks from the backfield.

“Teams without the ball are going a long way to winning some of these test matches at the moment. They’re kicking a lot, forcing a lot of mistakes,” All Blacks second five-eighth Jordie Barrett said astutely, noting George Ford kicked 27 points as England overcame their one-man disadvantage for 78 minutes against Argentina.

Barrett offered further evidence by pointing to Wales making a World Cup-record 252 tackles in their win over Fiji.

When the All Blacks defeated the Wallabies 38-7 in Melbourne this year the ball was in play for over 40 minutes. When they were humbled by South Africa at Twickenham the figure dropped to 33 minutes.

The All Blacks clearly want to lift the pace and tempo at this World Cup. The heat, which imposed one water break each half on the opening weekend, hasn’t helped that desire but those measures won’t be in place as the sweltering temperatures in France ease in the coming weeks.

One way to keep the ball in play more is to kick less. The All Blacks have addressed elements of their kicking against France after Ian Foster conceded his side lacked ambition during their concerning final quarter fade at Stade de France.

“We found in our game there was only 27 minutes of ball in play which is pretty crazy in an 80-minute match,” Barrett said. “We’d like that number to be higher to bring fatigue into the game and potentially reduce those water breaks so we can use that to our advantage a little bit more but we’ve got to adapt.

“It’s different, it’s a World Cup, and you’re going to get tested. Later on in the tournament there will be different factors and whoever adapts better on the night when it becomes sudden death will go a long way. A lot more ball in play is needed.

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“As the tournament goes on you have to adapt against different opposition, the conditions, Northern Hemisphere teams, the referees. We’ve got to keep getting better.”

The All Blacks know they won’t have it all their own way at this World Cup. They also know it won’t be the last time they confront the successful blueprint France, Ireland and South Africa have adopted.

As scrum coach Greg Feek explained, playing at pace and attempting to speed up contests remains the All Blacks’ modus operandi. There are elements such as regaining forward punch they can control, though, and others they can’t.

“Some of it is talking to the referee if there’s guys going down or taking time to get into a lineout. There’s certain things that contribute to that,” Feek said. “There’s water breaks as well. Yes, we would like to play more footy. We want to get our game going, get into a fast pace that suits our style that we love to play.”

Dane Coles, attending his third World Cup, appreciates more than most the All Blacks must find a way through slow, kick-heavy slugfests if they are to transform their prospects.

“We always back our fitness but you might not get the ball in play you want at this World Cup,” Coles said. “It comes back to holding on to the pill, being disciplined, building pressure, defending really well on our line. There’s a number of things that can help that.”

Liam Napier has been a sports journalist since 2010, and his work has taken him to World Cups in rugby, netball and cricket, boxing world title fights and Commonwealth Games.

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