Henry: We didn't deserve to win

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Head coach Graham Henry says the All Blacks will be forced back to the drawing board following their unflattering showing in the 27-22 loss to France.

The All Blacks were out-played in most areas of the game in their first-up defeat in the Iveco Series to France at Carisbrook on Saturday night.

The side's new-look loose forward trio was no match for the French at the breakdown.

The scrum also had its issues, although it wasn't helped by some of the rulings of referee George Clancy.

The All Black back-line was also largely negated, consistently being unable to break through the impressive French defence.

Both sides now travel to Wellington for next Saturday night's rematch at Westpac Stadium.

And Henry said there was no shortage of areas which needed to be urgently addressed if the All Blacks were to retain the Dave Gallaher Trophy.

"We were the second best side out there and we didn't deserve to win," Henry said.

"We needed some physicality out there. I think that was the biggest shock to the guys, just getting some parity physically.

"There is a lot for this young side to work on. The development of our ability in the game was a positive thing and hopefully we can take that onto next week and next Saturday.

"We have a lot of work to do.

"I thought our scrum struggled, we didn't have a platform to work off. I thought the line-out was very good, we got better at the breakdown as the game went on.

"I don't think we got the ball in the position from the set-pieces sufficiently well to attack from it; I am talking about advantage line here so we got knocked over behind the advantage line and tried to attack from there which made it difficult.

"We have a lot of things to work on."

The areas where France impressed the much should have come as no surprise to the All Blacks.

In the week leading up to the clash in Dunedin the All Black coaches and players all spoke of the intensity they expected France to bring.

But for the first 30 minutes of the loss they had little answer against the tourists.

Henry put the poor showing down to an off night rather than an attitude issue.

"I don't think it is anything about the effort, I just think we turned over a bit of ball," he said.

"We didn't defend as well as we should so we had the French in some difficult situations and we missed one-on-one tackles, that sort of thing.

"I don't think it was that was attitude.

"It was just that we didn't play as well as we should have and got ourselves into trouble because of those situations.

"As we started to play a bit better we started to get parity physically. So hopefully we can improve on that next week."

To make matters worse for the All Blacks they were struck by further injuries at Carisbrook.

Hooker Andrew Hore suffered rib cartilage damage and is highly unlikely to be available for the Wellington clash.

Adam Thomson also suffered a suspected broken hand.

Henry said while he was far from impressed by the first-up showing, he was still able to draw some positives out of the match.

That included the All Blacks' ability to fight their way back into the match after Liam Messam's try on the stroke of halftime.

"You have to congratulate the French. They played exceptionally well; they were more physical than us in the early parts of the game," he said.

"After 30 minutes it didn't look good.

"I am pleased with the way our guys came back. (Down) 17-3 after 30 minutes, there was a big question mark on our ability to play the game.

"I think the boys showed a lot of character in the final 50 minutes to make a pretty good game of it."