France v New Zealand: The World Cup is a year away but in Paris today the Six Nations champions France will pit their talents against the Tri-Nations victors New Zealand in what can be termed the unofficial world championship of 2002.
The French go into the clash with the scalp of South Africa under their belt while the All Blacks will be similarly confident despite the narrow 31-28 defeat by England last weekend.
For the All Blacks though it gives them a chance to wipe away memories of the bitter semi-final loss in the 1999 World Cup where like in 1995 they had looked to be the winners of the competition until one match dictated otherwise.
"In 1995 we met an inspired South Africa in the final and 1999 saw us play a French side that that day was unbeatable," said Andrew Mehrtens, who along with Jonah Lomu are the sole survivors in this squad from both those crushing defeats.
Lomu and Mehrtens acknowledge that playing France is 80 minutes of nervous warfare as the unpredictability they bring to the game never allows their opposition to relax.
"All of a sudden the French can turn on the flair, the same as a big Italian family lunch - always unpredictable," said Mehrtens.
Lomu will come up against the physically unimpressive but lightening quick French winger Vincent Clerc, who made a tryscoring debut against the Springboks - not bad for a player who was performing in the Second Division last season.
"I'm going to have to watch him closely as he (Clerc) has a fair bit of toe on him," Lomu said. The other wing battle should be a fascinating tussle between Clerc's Toulouse team-mate Cedric Heymans and the fastest pair of heels around at the moment Doug Howlett, scorer of 15 tries in his 22 appearances.
Where the All Blacks will find it toughest will be in the scrum as their inexperienced pack comes up against possibly the best pack overall in Europe and who gave the highly-rated Springbok eight a torrid time last Saturday.
REPLACEMENTS
FRANCE - J-B Rue (Agen), S Marconnet (Stade Francais), T Privat (Beziers), S Chabal (Bourgoin), D Yachvili (Biarritz), G Merceron (Montferrand), X Garbajosa (Toulouse).
NEW ZEALAND - K Mealamu (Auckland), C Hayman (Otago), K Robinson (Waikato), R So'oialo (Wellington), S Devine (Auckland), P Steinmetz (Wellington), B Blair (Canterbury).
