THE ALL BLACKS stretched their Eden Park winning streak to 30 in 19 years on Saturday when they beat France 23-13 in an untidy encounter.
They scored two tries to one in the All Blacks’ first clash against France since their 8-7 victory in the World Cup final at the same ground two years ago.
France, the last team to beat the All Blacks at Eden Park in 1994, signalled an intent to repeat that triumph when Wesley Fofana scored the opening try after Florian Fritz had waltzed past Ma’a Nonu.
But in front of a full house of 46,000, the All Blacks came back to turn the game with two tries in five minutes late in the half for a 17-10 lead.
The second half saw just two All Blacks penalties and one to France, with both sides committing basic errors.
In a game that never reached great heights, multiple mistakes led to frequent turnovers and tries went begging at both ends of the field in the second spell.
“Obviously we’re not happy with the performance,” All Blacks coach Steve Hansen said.
“We know it was ugly at times but we also know it was the first game of the season.
“There’s a lot of us working on new things and when you’re doing that you’re going to create mistakes.”
French coach Philippe Saint-Andre, who captained the side when they last won at Eden Park, believed his team squandered a golden chance for victory.
“We had the opportunity when Louis Picamoles dropped the ball going for the line and there was nobody there.“It was a shame because for the French team we don’t have too many opportunities to beat New Zealand in New Zealand.”
The All Blacks had the better of the opening exchanges until French captain Thierry Dusautoir engineered the move that led to Fofana’s try, as he turned over All Blacks skipper Kieran Read.
Maxime Machenaud made no mistake with the straight forward conversion while All Blacks fly-half Aaron Cruden, filling in for the injured Dan Carter missed two early close-range penalties.
But he was on target with his third attempt, from 39 metres, after a few words from regular kicking ace Carter who delivered the kicking tee.
The All Blacks then took the lead with back-to-back tries. The first, a 60-metre effort finished by Aaron Smith after a Camille Lopez box kick went astray and Ben Smith launched the counter-attack.
Denied
Nonu featured in the second try when he beat Lopez and fed Aaron Smith who put Sam Cane over under the posts.
Lopez slotted a penalty early after the resumption to reduce the gap to four points at 17-13.
But stout All Blacks defence, and the slow pace of replacement scrum-half Jean-Marc Doussain, denied France the chance to regain the lead with a try as they battered the All Blacks line for several minutes midway through the half.
In the closing stages, Cruden landed two further penalties for the All Blacks, who never seriously looked like scoring a third try.
