“In New Zealand, we know very well that the French XV is exceptional.”

Runway. “It was exceptional”“It’s a big deal,” one All Blacks team member said of the French’s reception at the start of September in Lyon [leur camp de base]. good start. Thank you, Lyons! On the other hand, the reception will be cooler in Paris on September 8, when we will face France in the opening match of the Rugby World Cup. This tournament is exceptional in that it brings together the best players and the best teams – which is not the same thing, because the best players do not necessarily make up the most united teams.

Take the three Tom Thumbs in contention, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. Fiji beat England in a friendly match. Tonga beat the Blues in 2011. As for Samoa, it reached the quarter-finals in 1991 and 1995.

So, these are three little groups of islands in the Pacific Ocean, says the Wallabies coach himself [l’équipe australienne], Eddie Jones, turning the oval upside down. We no longer count Polynesian players in World Cup teams. They dominate the All Blacks and Wallabies ranks. And that’s a good thing: the geopolitics of rugby contrast with traditional geopolitics.

In the land of the long white cloud, the “beautiful game” is rugby. Not football. Indeed, in rugby, we score more points. Hence the players do their best to fake an injury and get a penalty kick. When a rugby player is tackled and hurts himself, we know he is really hurting himself. We play for real.

Richie McCaw and Thierry Dussutoire

Friday evening in Paris, and Saturday morning in New Zealand [10 heures de décalage horaire], the XV of France faces the All Blacks. Countless New Zealanders will be watching and praying. France is the favorite and should win. But it could be us too.

Our country lives by rugby and breathes rugby. We’re all experts – couch athletes – on our favorite team, the All Blacks. And we are all capable of feeling the deepest hatred if we think a coach has done a poor job – but our builders or our plumbers, we never think we know more than they do.

If France beats us, most of us will feel very sad. And if we go out in the quarter-finals, as they did in 2007, and indeed in 1999, by France, then New Zealand will be in mourning. We played two finals against the Blues, and won the first one [en 1987]The second is a small dot. In 2011, the saga competed with two accomplished teams, the great captain Richie McCaw, and his counterpart, Thierry Dusuttoire.

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