All Blacks on warpath

Greg Stutchbury
Saturday 20 June 2009 00:00 BST
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

This election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.

The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.

Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.

A simple piece of advice from the former New Zealand captain and World Cup-winning coach Brian Lochore will be used to help motivate the All Blacks for their second Test against France in Wellington at this morning following their defeat in last weekend's opening match.

"He said [we] were ready for the battle but not the war," the All Blacks coach, Graham Henry, said yesterday of Lochore's impression of the 27-22 first Test loss in Dunedin. "That was a pretty good statement from BJ [Lochore]. A lot of the boys just did not understand what was required until they had experienced that. Hopefully they will be ready for war."

The All Blacks were well beaten by a superb defensive effort by France last week. Henry said the team had been concentrating on the lessons learned to prepare for the Test at Westpac Stadium which starts at 8.35am BST. "Another week together is very helpful. They know what Test match rugby is all about," Henry said. "We always have physical contests in the first game [of the season] and some of the guys weren't used to that. It's a learning curve and if we haven't learned from last week we're in trouble."

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in