{"id":503510,"date":"2026-06-30T23:26:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T23:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/503510\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T23:26:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T23:26:11","slug":"all-blacks-v-france-is-a-rivalry-that-has-defined-rugby-drama-phil-gifford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/503510\/","title":{"rendered":"All Blacks v France is a rivalry that has defined rugby drama \u2013 Phil Gifford"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the French players jogged on to the field one, a hooker called Jacques Rollet realised he needed a quick toilet break. He didn\u2019t trot into the privacy of the changing rooms, but instead wandered to the nearest goal post, and peed on it.<\/p>\n

The horror! In the Herald the great rugby writer Terry (later Sir Terry) McLean<\/a> called his action \u201canswering some atavistically canine impulse\u201d. There was a tense meeting between the French team\u2019s management and NZRU officials. <\/p>\n

To the slight disappointment of smutty-minded teenagers, as my friends and I were at the time, the public behaviour of the team was impeccable for the rest of their visit, and all attention swung to the matches being played.<\/p>\n

\"AllAll Black Don McKay (centre) races for the ball against wing Jean Dupuy (left) during France’s 1961 tour of New Zealand. Photo \/ NZ Herald Archives<\/p>\n

All life\u2019s emotions<\/p>\n

In hindsight, the 1961 series contained everything that makes playing the French so exciting. I know, for example, that the weather was perfect for the first test, won 13-6 at Eden Park by the All Blacks, because I had an unobstructed view of the brilliant blue sky lying flat on my back beside my father on the Dominion Rd terraces. <\/p>\n

Everyone standing there found themselves falling backwards when the front rows toppled over in the excitement of a sensational try to wing Don McKay in the opening minutes of the game. The French played some brilliant running rugby too, but not quite enough to catch New Zealand.<\/p>\n

For French grit and courage, you couldn\u2019t fault the second test at Athletic Park in Wellington played in a gale so strong ticket holders for the top decks of the new Millard stand were told at the ground that they took their seats at their own risk. The French slugged out 80 exhausting minutes and only just lost 5-3. By contrast, there seemed to have been a communal shrug in French ranks in the third and final test in Christchurch, where the All Blacks swept to an easy 32-3 victory.<\/p>\n

In the decades since, the French have featured in some of the greatest days of All Blacks rugby, and certainly in one of the darkest ones.<\/p>\n

The nightmare<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve only thought I was having a heart attack once in my life, on the press bench in Cardiff the night France eliminated the All Blacks from the 2007 Rugby World Cup<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Straight after the last French try put France ahead, 20-18, Tony Smith from the Press leans over to me and whispers: \u201cFrance are going to win this one Phil.\u201d For some weird reason that thought hasn\u2019t crossed my mind until Tony says it out loud. <\/p>\n

My arms actually go numb with shock, and I try to secretly shake feeling back into them, fighting off the panicky feeling I may be having a heart attack.<\/p>\n

The only humour from the night comes when a Welsh official says: \u201cAny Kiwis wanting to use the toilets are going to have to hand over their ties and shoelaces first, please.\u201d<\/p>\n

France duly won 20-18. They went on to lose 14-6 to England in their semi-final. We went home empty-handed. Who would have expected it? We should have. We were, after all, playing France, the kings of the unexpected.<\/p>\n

\"AllAll Blacks captain Richie McCaw and teammate Carl Hayman during the 2007 Rugby World Cup quarter-final against France at the Millennium Stadium. Photo \/ Brett Phibbs<\/p>\n

The battle of the ages<\/p>\n

Before the final of the 2011 Rugby World Cup<\/a> in New Zealand, at Eden Park, one of the biggest bookmakers in Europe, Paddy Power from Ireland paid out on an All Blacks victory two days before the game was played. In New Zealand, on the other hand, there was nothing like the Irish confidence and certainly not a trace of arrogance from the likes of our captain Richie McCaw.<\/p>\n

We were playing France and we knew that meant previous form counted for nothing. There was also universal Kiwi admiration for their captain, Thierry Dusautoir. <\/p>\n

We knew he was a hell of a rugby player, hugely powerful and, even by international standards, amazingly fit. McCaw remembers looking across at him once in a test, \u201cand the bugger wasn\u2019t even sweating\u201d. In the dreaded 2007 quarter-final debacle, he was the key figure for France, making a staggering 38 tackles.<\/p>\n

\"France'sFrance’s captain Thierry Dusautoir is tackled by Conrad Smith during the final of the RWC 2011. Photo \/ Richie Robinson<\/p>\n

Dusautoir\u2019s father was a French soldier, who met his mother while stationed in the Ivory Coast. Thierry\u2019s family came to France when he was 10.<\/p>\n

Mad on judo, he played his first game of rugby as a 16-year-old. Well-schooled, with a degree in chemical engineering, he\u2019s dignified and quietly spoken at all times, and was frank about how nerve-wracking the 2011 final was. \u201cTonight everyone was nervous. Them and us. There were 30 guys on the pitch and we were all scared.\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019d never have guessed it from how he played, leading France through a tremendous 80 minutes that developed into a heart-stopping arm wrestle. Eventually the All Blacks took the title, 8-7. McCaw is as honest as Dusautoir. His overwhelming emotion on the night? \u201cRelief.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether the current French squad will produce another classic performance in Christchurch this Saturday, who can tell? But let\u2019s remember it is France, so anything could happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the French players jogged on to the field one, a hooker called Jacques Rollet realised he needed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[251216,5263,8136,29162,5136,1221,80278,6871,185,111,139,69,21037,26534,6327,1534,213,1361],"class_list":["post-503510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-705pm","tag-all","tag-blacks","tag-defined","tag-drama","tag-france","tag-gifford","tag-has","tag-is","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-phil","tag-rivalry","tag-rugby","tag-saturday","tag-sports","tag-that"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}