Sporting philosophies

is crazy. My 22-year-old son was not yet born when the All Blacks last lost – to France – at their spiritual home.

We can argue the merits of one back against another all evening but the big games are usually decided by the big men. The one aspect of this game few people are focused on is the All Black forward pack which is unlikely to suffer the same bullying behaviour from the tourists that did for some of the provincial teams.

They will miss the effervescent Dane Coles who is injured but in Brodie Retallick, missing for that Ireland defeat, Sam Cane, Jerome Kaino, Owen Franks and even an undercooked Kieran Read the All Blacks have enough about them to match anyone up front. With weapons elsewhere, forward parity should be enough to see the Kiwis edge a close encounter.

2 All Blacks Brodie Retallick, Beauden Barrett and Julian Savea are put through their paces in training in Auckland ahead of tomorrow’s first Test.