“But we are also aware that this is Laurie’s last game as coach of the All Blacks and we would love to finish on a high. In addition, yesterday the French manager, Andre Herrero, rescinded his decision to resign.The All Blacks have now lost three matches in a row to France, something which has rarely happened against any team, and the prospect of losing four in a row has Sean Fitzpatrick and his men visibly on edge.”That’s certainly an extra motivation for us,” he said. “We didn’t expect to win the first one, so we are all pretty laid back about the second Test,” their captain, Philippe Saint-Andre, said. IAN BORTHWICK

reports from Paris
Faces have been long in the All Blacks camp this week, and the tension extreme as the New Zealanders attempted to pick themselves up from last Saturday’s surprise defeat.

The French press has been sent packing, all training has been in utmost secrecy and the formerly affable, smiling Laurie Mains has turned into the jumpy coach we saw at the recent World Cup.Still the All Blacks are very much under pressure and the only thing equalling their stress levels appears to be the astonishingly relaxed attitude of the French team in camp at Clairefontaine. If, or probably when, Pienaar, or more likely Ruben Kruger, gets to him today he may have cause for regret.ENGLAND v SOUTH AFRICAat TwickenhamJ Callard Bath 15 A Joubert NatalD Hopley Wasps 14 J Olivier Northern TransvaalW Carling Harlequins, capt 13 J Mulder TransvaalJ Guscott Bath 12 H le Roux TransvaalR Underwood Leicester 11 C Williams Western ProvinceM Catt Bath 10 J Stransky Western ProvinceK Bracken Bristol 9 J van der Westhuizen N TransvaalJ Leonard Harlequins 1 A van der Linde Western ProvinceM Regan Bristol 2 J Dalton TransvaalV Ubogu Bath 3 T Laubscher Western ProvinceM Johnson Leicester 4 J Wiese TransvaalM Bayfield Northampton 5 M Andrews NatalT Rodber Northampton 6 R Kruger Northern TransvaalB Clarke Bath 8 F Pienaar Transvaal, captA Robinson Bath 7 F van Heerden Western ProvinceReferee: J Fleming (Scotland) Kick-off: 2.30 (BBC1). His description of Francois Pienaar, the South Africa captain, as an “average” player was ill-judged not as an expression of opinion so much as in its crass timing. Just like when the All Blacks were booted to defeat in 1993.So it would be as well to reserve judgement on Mike Catt’s prospects as Andrew’s outside-half successor until he has experienced a less fraught occasion than this one against opponents for whom he once aspired to play. At least Catt, born and bred in Port Elizabeth, now has the opportunity to let his rugby do the talking for him. “I want to develop this style of ball-in-the-hand against South Africa, in the Five Nations, under that kind of pressure.”Well, who wouldn’t? The crashing disappointment of England’s World Cup departure against a side – New Zealand – playing a form of total rugby has opened English minds, though today’s is another of those games in which the end of winning – and not the means by which it happens – is its own justification.

Now they have an alternative, so now they must find a way to exploit their exceptional, and exceptionally underused, outside backs.While it was happening, everyone denied there was a problem. Yet here we are six months after the World Cup and, all of a sudden, everyone agrees that there was.”Last year we played fairly expansively against Romania and Canada but when it came to the pressure of the Five Nations, and in the World Cup, we did revert to a more conservative game,” captain Carling said. As long as Rob Andrew was at outside-half standing back in that familiar comfort zone, protected by Brian Moore, Dean Richards and the rest, they had little reason – not in their own minds, anyway – of alternatives. Mega-fixtures such as today’s, grossing pounds 2.1m for the RFU, will justify the players’ existence as professionals and if – as they might well – they fail, the consequence could be not just to be dropped but to be reduced to a form of sporting penury.Then there is the wider but associated imperative, the professionals’ need to entertain a paying public, and, as this is something England teams have not been too good at, much of the pre-match debate has yet again revolved around whether this may be about to change.Who can tell? Who would dare predict? By selectorial design England are without the spine of their World Cup side, a choice which, however risky, does at least deprive them of the too-easy fall-back position of achieving victory by bludgeon rather than rapier that has hitherto been too easy for them by half.One might say literally so.