New Zealand are less flummoxed than most at the decision of France to field a scrum-half at fly-half in the pool decider against the All Blacks at Eden Park on Saturday.
The decision of the France coach Marc Lièvremont to start Morgan Parra, his reserve scrum-half, at stand-off and relegate François Trinh-Duc to the bench did nothing to silence conspiracy theorists who believe Les Bleus would take considerable consolation in defeat.
The winner of the pool will have a harder path to the final than the runner-up, if the world rankings are taken into account. One of the countries at two and three on the list, Australia and South Africa respectively, will probably lie in wait in the semi-final.
New Zealand fielded a scrum-half at 10 during the Tri Nations, although Piri Weepu did not start the game against South Africa in Port Elizabeth. He came off the bench to replace Colin Slade for the final 20 minutes.
"I was a bit nervous at the beginning, but I would feel pretty confident slotting in there now if I was asked to," said Weepu. "You have to be sharp with your decision-making and cannot afford to be half-hearted. I was pretty nervous going into the game but I got through the week and when I took the field I felt I knew what I was doing, that I had been there before. We will be having a look at Morgan Parra and doing our homework."
Dimitri Yachvili, the former Gloucester scrum-half who will partner Parra, said France were focused on victory and were anxious to continue their good recent record against the All Blacks having beaten them in the 2007 World Cup and again on tour here two years ago.
"We were the last team to beat the All Blacks in Eden Park," said Yachvili. "We defeated them two years ago so why not again on Saturday? It is strange that we have a good record against them in the World Cup but not England. Perhaps we are more afraid of facing New Zealand than England, even though they are our bête noire. I cannot explain it.
"If we go into Saturday's game thinking we will lose, we will get smashed. There is always pressure on you, but this is a group match, not a quarter-final. It is not the end, but we want to win every game. The All Blacks are a dangerous side, but we have improved in our team games so far and there is more to come. Ireland showed how to best southern hemisphere opposition last week."
"We started slowly because we only had two warm-up games, but the spirit in the squad is high. It will not be difficult for Morgan and I to be effective at half-back: we had some time together against both Japan and Canada so it will not be new for us."
While France do not appear to have chosen their strongest side, their defence coach, Dave Ellis, said there was a clear rationale behind the selection, one that had nothing to do with a preference for finishing second in the group.
"The team has been picked on the form shown by players in the opening two games," said Ellis. "There is a lot of pressure on the All Blacks to perform. When you look at the home unions, most of their players do not know what it is like to taste success against the All Blacks. We have done it in 2007 and 2009. We know it is not impossible to beat New Zealand."
Stores here are prominently selling DVDs of a famous victory by New Zealand over France, the 1987 World Cup final at Eden Park. A copy of the 2007 quarter-final between the sides in Cardiff is slightly harder to find.
"The guys who played in that match had never watched it on tape until this week," said the New Zealand hooker, Keven Mealamu. "Those of us who went through that experience had not spoken about it since, but it is good to move forward and see what went wrong."
The All Blacks return to Auckland from the earthquake hit Christchurch on Wednesday. "There were some shakes yesterday," said the wing Cory Jane. "I was scared and had an escape plan ready. A few of the Christchurch boys said they were nothing, but it shook us up."
