The daggers are drawn again. Inevitably, after such an embarrassing All Blacks loss to a lowly-rated French team, issues were bound to flare up between the Cheerleaders and the Cynics.

Embarrasing, it certainly was. When an All Black team is paying just $1.11 to win and their opposition is at $6.00, the men in black losing has to be a fairly humiliating experience.

In the name of honesty and transparency, anybody who has paid me the respect of reading a blog or two of mine after the last World Cup knows that I was highly critical and cynical of the reappointment of Henry and co.

Having said that, at this stage last year, I also said that it was time for all New Zealand fans to come together, put differences aside and support Henry, Hansen and Smith in their endeavours.

And support them I did and took delight in our heroes securing the Tri-Nations title and the Bledisloe Cup yet again last year.

Which is why I can genuinely say that I'm as surprised as anybody that Henry and co. have reverted back to some of their bizarre and supposedly buried ways of the past.

Like selecting an All Blacks XV that took the field at Carisbrook containing four young men playing out of their Super 14 positions.

Corey Jane, Isaia Toeava, Liam Messam and Adam Thomson all started in jersey numbers they have scarcely worn all season.

The worst of this nonsense was putting Thomson, an out and out blindside flanker at openside. Especially given that it was Richie McCaw himself who said that he saw Tanearu Latimer as his obvious replacement when injury struck.

On Saturday afternoon, before the test commenced, Josh Kronfeld labelled the decision to play Thomson at No. 7 as "weird."

After the test, Laurie Mains said the move was "one of Graham Henry's more staggering mistakes and showed a distinct lack of judgement."

The questions must be asked. Why on earth have our three wise men reverted back to expecting certain new All Blacks to play at their best in unfamiliar positions?

Why on earth hasn't history taught them that playing the next best player in a certain position is a rule that makes the most sense.

I'm expecting the cheerleaders to tell me that injury ensured Henry and co. had no choice and that Corey Jane, for example, had an impressive game.

So what? So one out of four mistakes sort of worked out OK this time.

I'm also expecting the cheerleaders to repeat the excuse-making nonsense that Steve Hansen spouted after the game.

"That was a typical, scratchy, first-up All Blacks performance," said Steve. "They need time to get the combinations up to speed."

Really Steve? So it would also be perfectly reasonable and expected to have either Mal Meninga or Craig Bellamy come up with the same excuse if the Maroons or the Blues played as poorly in a first State of Origin game.

Hell will have truly frozen over before you'd hear such clap-trap from both these men.

And why couldn't the French trot out a similar excuse, given they'd flown halfway around the world?

Of course, I know that one loss needn't necessarily indicate a sad international season ahead for the All Blacks. And nor should the odd loss mean despair should prevail.

What does alarm me however is that our coaches have shown such clear signs of re-introducing some of the destructive strategies from two years ago.

Finally, I again emphasise that so much of this obvious lack of depth in certain positions would be solved if all New Zealanders playing overseas were available for test rugby.

For example, Nick Evans being made available would instantly relegate Stephen Donald to the provincial player he is and nothing more.

Your views are more than welcome.