Laporte urges France to target Kiwi weak spots

FRANCE coach Bernard Laporte admits he must dismantle the myth of the All Blacks in his players’ minds if their World Cup dream is to continue.

The hosts face New Zealand in the quarter-finals on Saturday night in Cardiff, having been forced to leave their homeland because of their inability to win their pool.

Now Laporte, without the aid of a partisan French crowd, has the task of convincing his players that the favourites are not unbeatable.

He said: “The All Blacks are very good and we respect them. They are just like a myth. And that is why we will try to explain to the players that they have to be strong in the fight.

“We will have to be very good in every sector of our game. Even in the scrum New Zealand are very good now. We will have to rise to that level of rugby if we want to win.

“It is not only Dan Carter (New Zealand’s fly-half) who is very good, there are a lot of quality players around him. They are a very collective team now.”

Laporte and his coaching team have been studying the videos of New Zealand’s pool victories against Scotland, Italy, Romania and Portugal and also their most recent triumphs in the Tri-Nations championship.

The French boss believes the All Blacks have not yet been tested and have relied mainly on individual power rather than highly-tuned teamwork.

And while France lost to New Zealand a year ago Laporte’s side can take heart from the fact that they did win the biggest match between the two nations, the World Cup semi-final at Twickenham in 1999.

He said: “I don’t know if it is better to play them in the quarter-final or the final. But we have to play them. They have not had hard games in the pool matches.

“They are not taking any risks, haven’t scored many tries on first-phase balls and most of the tries have been scored individually not collectively.

“But they are not unbeatable. In one game anything is possible.”

Laporte plans just four training sessions in the run-up to the match to give his players chance to recover from their pool phase exertions.

And while he reiterated that France would have preferred to have been playing in Paris or Marseille he was philosophical about having to trek to the Millennium Stadium.

He said: “It was a difficult group and we did not do what we had to do in the first game (losing 17-12 to Argentina). Yes we would have preferred Paris or Marseille in front of our fans, but we are going to Cardiff and we just have to accept it.”

Meanwhile, Lionel Beauxis, France’s 21-year-old fly-half who ran the show in Sunday’s 64-7 victory against Georgia, was hoping he had played himself into the quarter-final starting line-up

He said: “I am very impatient to play in the game and I am looking forward to the match. Yesterday was an opportunity for me to show why I am part of the squad.”