All Blacks legend Sir John Kirwan was left delighted by the All Blacks\u2019 start under new head coach Dave Rennie following their victory over France.<\/p>\n
New Zealand overcame Les Bleus 34-32 in Christchurch as they opened their Nations Championship campaign with an important victory.<\/p>\n
While it was only a narrow success, the style of play was in stark contrast to what they produced under Rennie\u2019s<\/a> predecessor, Scott Robertson.<\/p>\n They kicked very little and played some free-flowing rugby at times, scoring five tries in the victory at the weekend.<\/p>\n \u2018Expansive\u2019 All Blacks<\/p>\n \u201cFor the new regime, Dave Rennie and his staff, it was really important. What I liked was the expansiveness,\u201d Kirwan<\/a> said on the Rivals podcast.<\/p>\n \u201cThere seems to be this word that keeps coming out of the camp, we\u2019ve got to play with \u2018optimism\u2019, and I thought there was some real old style All Blacks<\/a> flair.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were a couple of stray passes that could have finished them off but I thought it was a nice balance.<\/p>\n \u201c[Ruben] Love at 10, besides getting yellow carded really early, he played well. I think there was a little bit of a hangover from Super Rugby where sometimes you just kick it out of your half and just get it out of there, and I don\u2019t think you can do that at international level \u2013 we won\u2019t be able to do that against South Africa.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019ll learn that but I thought it was a pretty good start. The combination of nine, 10 and 12 was a good start, so positives all round, I was really stoked.\u201d<\/p>\n Sir Steve Hansen: Rassie Erasmus\u2019 Springboks are misleading everyone about how they want to play<\/a><\/p>\n Although Rennie understands that the All Blacks have some way to catch up to the Springboks, who hammered England 45-21 in Johannesburg, there were enough promising signs for Kirwan.<\/p>\n Robertson was criticised for a perceived conservative game plan and perhaps looking to South Africa for inspiration, but the former wing believes that the two countries are diverging once again.<\/p>\n Comparisons to Springboks style<\/p>\n