This was racehorses against shire horses

I’M struggling to find the words to describe exactly how good New Zealand were on Saturday night but I will offer you two facets of their game which every team and every coach can aspire to. They have supreme fitness and great handling skills from one to 15. Fitness is an attribute which differs depending on how you view it. You can have great ‘athletes’ of all shapes and sizes depending on your discipline and objective. Standing at pitchside for ITV before the match the French were huge muscular guys, massively strong shire horses. New Zealand meanwhile were sleek racehorses, thoroughbreds with not an ounce of extra weight. And that physical type shows in their play. On a perfect track, under cover at Cardiff, they can play the game at a tempo very few can live with. Fitness accentuates New Zealand’s already excellent handling skills. New Zealand rugby players are taught early how to give and take a pass properly and when you can do that for 80 minutes it’s incredibly difficult to combat. And then you have the add-ons. Dan Carter rolling back the years and dictating the game at 10, Julian Savea rediscovering his best, Conrad Smith and Ma’a Nonu bossing it in their 60th Test together. It was a masterclass. There has been much talk about how France’s Top 14 league, with its influx of foreign stars, has helped destroy the national team but that argument doesn’t wash with me. France still have more quality professional players than most nations can dream of. It all starts with the quality of coaching in the national set-up.

MAN OF THE MATCH: Brodie Retallick is one of the few really big men in the New Zealand team but he is a wonderful athlete and has the best hands and ball-playing skills I have seen from a Test lock.