New Zealand-France: the Blues have promises to hold … in Wellington, how can the XV of France reissue the performance of Dunedin

After the surprise effect, confirmation? A week after held up to the All Blacks with brilliance in Dunedin (27-31), the Blues are trying their luck this morning in Wellington. With a very clear plan from Fabien Galkié, who has renewed his two-thirds starting XV: take advantage of this meeting to make a complete workforce review in anticipation of the final bouquet, in a week in Hamilton, with a group that should be reintegrated by the most prominent players of the past week (Mickaël Guillard, Gaël Fickou …) to compose the best team of this tour.

If the opponent will appear in a similar configuration (two changes at the start due to the injuries of Scott Barrett and Sevu Reece) and, let us admit, with a certain feeling of revenge, the narrowness of success having necessarily made a few teeth cringe, the context has changed somewhat. This time, no synthetic or a closed roof as at the Forsyth Barr Stadium, but a real confrontation with the winter conditions which is currently rampant in the southern hemisphere. And they promise to have Dantesques at the Regional Stadium Wellington between the rain, the wind and a fattest lawn.

The heart to compensate for the inexperience?

The Blues, although reinforced by five finalists who had to be used after having claimed them so much (the Toulouse Pierre-Louis Barassi and Joshua Brennan for his first, the Bordeaux Nicolas Depoortere and Pierre Bochaton, also called to be baptized as the ex-columérin Bastien Vergnes-Tailfer in the course), will present themselves with a team even less experienced. past.

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4.2 Selections from average to kick -off, 63 in total: it is less than the only Beauden and Jordie Barrett (135 and 69), Codie Taylor (97), Ardie Savea (95) and Rieko Ioane (82). However, go know why at a time when the Scott Robertson transplant has not yet taken completely, the New Zealand press has considered it good not to make boxes, having perhaps estimated that the heart could replace the experience and that a French irritated were worth two …

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The fact remains that the coach of the Blues advances with the desire not only to be content to hold the standoff: “We can be a little more ambitious, he announces. There was sometimes a complex, so our challenge is to continue playing fair, to say that we are also capable.”

Barlot: “Knowing how to knock, hurting them”

Will the conditions make it possible to take risks in offensive phases? Nothing is less certain and as a combat leader, the ex-Castrais Gaëtan Barlot announces the color. “From the start, as we knew how to do it last week, you will have to be present in defense, know how to bang, to hurt them, and to chain tasks. This is where it is hard for them, they see that you knock and you get up, that is what you have to know how to go back to the Circle Blues.

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Maintaining his hinge Nolann Le Garrec – Joris Segonds, and by positioning Léo Barré at the back, the French staff also expanded his arsenal in terms of play at the foot to try to win a more tactical component of a battle that will not only be physical and mental.