Silky skills, crushing power and a ding-dong on the scoreboard lapped up by a sold-out Saturday-night crowd: this was a vintage instalment of a classic fixture that went right down to the wire.
Antoine Dupont may have looked a little rusty on his second outing for France since the scrum-half’s sevens sojourn at the Paris Olympics but Thomas Ramos, who kicked 15 points with six from six off the tee, was as dependable as ever.
New Zealand’s Ardie Savea was a typically monumental presence but the pace of Louis Bielle-Biarrey proved more potent in the final reckoning.
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“We’re very happy. It was a very tough game that could have gone either way,” the France second-row Thibaud Flament told TNT Sports. “We didn’t start in the right way and they put us under pressure. We had to trust our process and adapt our tactics [at half-time].”
Ramos, selected at fly-half alongside Dupont with the debutant Romain Buros starting at full-back, had opened the scoring with a nonchalant penalty from halfway before New Zealand’s Peter Lakai crashed over after a bullocking Savea run.
Scott Robertson, the All Blacks head coach, had declared their intention to spoil Dupont’s ball and the plan paid off handsomely when Cam Roigard snaffled an attempted Grégory Alldritt offload and raced over the try-line.
A muscular, clinical finish by the debutant Buros lifted the hosts but worryingly for Fabien Galthié, France had missed 17 tackles by half time, and trailed by seven points.
Shaun Edwards may have had a fusée (rocket, that is) for the French players because they were level within five minutes of the restart, the blindside flanker Paul Boudenhent touching down after a power-packed driving maul before Ramos converted.
Then, when a New Zealand move broke down and Ramos nudged a clever grubber kick in behind, Bielle-Biarrey’s pace was too much for the defensive cover: a seven-point deficit had become a seven-point lead and Stade de France was bouncing. It was clever from Ramos, who knew Bielle-Biarrey’s speed could be capitalised on with a clinical kick.
Damien McKenzie, another metronome off the tee, came off the bench and his three penalties, combined with another from Ramos, contrived to make it a one-point game with 10 minutes left.
Ofa Tu’ungafasi was pulled up by the TMO for a high hit, gifting the immaculate Ramos the chance to stroke over his sixth kick – only for McKenzie, again, to claw it back.
Then another kick-through and another thrilling foot race – this time between Bielle-Biarrey and Savea – had the crowd on the their feet. Although it ended with France penalised, the territory gained allowed them to cling on for a scintillating win.
“Extremely disappointed,” Savea said after his outstanding individual display. “We put ourselves right in there to win the game. We made silly mistakes, we turned the ball over, and that quality French squad will punish you.
“We felt like we were in control. We were pretty accurate in the first half … second half we just kind of let them in the game. We’ll have to look in the mirror and see where we could have put the nail in the coffin, because we didn’t do it tonight.”
Flament hinted that a record-equalling third straight win against the All Blacks bodes well for the road ahead to the 2027 World Cup. “I guess it was tough for us,” he said of last year’s quarter-final elimination. “In this Autumn Nations Series we wanted to have a new dynamic and start well … Hopefully, it’s the start of something good.”
