Aisle be Back: All Blacks v France #3

• By Kevin McCarthy

If you ever watched Sesame Street Classic, you’d know the puzzle song of One of these Things is Not Like The Other.

Or in the French rugby case – three of these things. And now in the All Blacks, two of these things.

Which leaves me struggling to weigh up how this last test of three will go on Saturday in Hamilton.

The All Blacks of course have done the big rotate, understandable and with some changes forced by injury.  Ten changes – including a new midfield. Seven of them from Chiefs country – though hardly like the miserable experiment of the CantaBlacks from a few decades ago.

If the coaching team have done their job, which I suspect they have, there should be a continuity of performance. Because having a decent 23 is okay – but a decent full squad is the ideal setup.

Looking at the steady drip of early season injuries, you can see why, and why a squad has to have a lot of inbuilt versatility.

Over on the French side, Fabien Galthie has had nine changes, ringing back in some old hands but once again, working with mostly second-string material.

He will have learned what he wants to know – which is probably who in the second test team might be a longer term prospect.

The biggest challenge for the All Blacks, who turned in a much more precise effort last weekend, is to not get too excited – or rather buy into any incipient hype.

The French second test side was a shadow of the team that gave the All Blacks a scare in test one.  So really, are there any useful guide sticks for New Zealand. If so, it would appear those are best assessed internally. Everyone knows the big challenge – mentally and physically – is coming across the ocean from the Republic.  Running through the French is a great shakedown, with promising signs of a squad that is gelling into its own distinctive style of play.

I doubt the All Blacks will run away with on  Saturday – unless the French already have one pack of Gauloises on the plane steps.  Then the entrée will largely be over.

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Journalists have to generate a lot of material these days, especially when clicks are a key measurement online. Finding something new or different to say is a challenge,

The Herald’s Gregor Paul is always worth a read – coming at rugby in many different ways, and outside the rails of usual sports writing.

But I just did not fathom a recent column on the eve of the Wellington test. He described Wellington as dying and dystopian (ok, we agree it’s a bit frayed), then somehow there was a juju curse hanging off New Zealand test teams playing at the Cake Tin – with a bad record, and a string of injury mishaps.

Finally, all this was weaved into an argument about removing NZR HQ and moving it to Auckland. One might say the last time this many longbows were being drawn was at Agincourt.

We all know that Auckland is a thriving global city functioning as the very best of New Zealand.

Unfortunately, less than week after this, a report came saying that wasn’t the case, and that Auckland needed to get its act together.

Perhaps we should all accept the inevitable and move everything to Palmerston North.