Laporte says ABs still 'best in world'

By MARC HINTON - RugbyHeaven | Tuesday, 16 October 2007

Do not adjust your screen, you are reading these words. France coach Bernard Laporte says New Zealand remain the best team in the world, despite the All Blacks' latest World Cup failure.

Laporte's reassurances of New Zealand's "true" position in the world game's pecking order will come as slim reassurance after his French side knocked the All Blacks out at the quarter-final stage of the current World Cup.

It was the New Zealand team's worst ever World Cup performance, and came as yet another thunderously disappointing conclusion to a four-year period where they had otherwise dominated the international game.

But it appears Laporte remains an admirer of Graham Henry's team, even if his Bleus were able to tip them up 20-18 in the Cardiff quarter-final, a result that shocked the watching rugby world.

Laporte, whose French side were eliminated in the weekend's semifinal by England and now face a bronze medal playoff against Argentina, feels no team can rival the New Zealanders when they're on top of their game.

"They have the power and the genius, something that no one else has," Laporte told reporters in Paris this week.

"They are the best team in the world. We beat them but if we had played them the next day and the following days, there was a great chance we would have lost.

"The All Blacks are the only team who can put 30 points on everybody else."

The French coach has been bagged by his home media for the conservative and defensive approach he took into the semifinal against England, won 14-9 by the defending champions.

But he used New Zealand's ultimate failure at the hands of his own side as a graphic example of the fact that it's defence, and not sparkling attack, that wins big matches at the World Cup.

"There have not been many great matches," he told reporters.

"Who has played any (attacking) rugby? The only ones are the All Blacks."

And look where it got them. A few empty words of assurance from a French coach. And not much else.

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