All Blacks player ratings: How they rated in third-test win over France
Stalwart clocked up his 85th test, running on home soil, returning after 12 weeks with a crocked collarbone. Put his body straight back into the fray with grunty short-game work. Crucial try to end first half highlighted his strength and smarts.
12.) Quinn Tupaea – 6
Human battering ram battered away — he's at his best blazing on to his first-five's shoulder. A couple of handling errors.
11.) Sevu Reece – 7
Worked hard in his return after unlucky head knock in first minute of series. Brought trademark dash and hustled smartly for chances.
Sevu Reece on the charge against France in Hamilton. Photo / Dean Purcell
10.) Damian McKenzie – 6
Organised well and was able to get his team in the right areas of the park.
9.) Cortez Ratima – 5
Produced a smart rolling boot for Will Jordan's try but sometimes seemed in two minds when delivering the ball from fast breakdowns. Halfback delivery seemed snappier when Hotham came on.
8.) Ardie Savea (c) – 5
A chip-and-chase 10m out from your own tryline? France were grateful for the three-pointer that followed; and again a few minutes later when he spilled the ball in his next carry in his own 22. First half was possibly one of his wobbliest in black. The Ardie we know so well — all leg strength, dash and breakdown bustle — returned in the second spell. Finished the match with the most carries (21).
Ardie Savea takes the ball up against France, in Hamilton. Photo / Photosport
7.) Du'Plessis Kirifi – 7
Hurricanes skipper stepped up nicely following late call to the starting ranks. Loose pass in 13th minute hot on attack led to defensive scramble. In the second half, his old-fashioned breakdown skills came to the fore. Smart work to put himself in place to grab a crucial try. Another whose game improved as the night went on.
Du'Plessis Kirifi goes over for a vital All Blacks try against France, in Hamilton. Photo / Dean Purcell
6.) Samipeni Finau – 6
Finally gets a chance to show his goods in the No 6 jersey after watching Chiefs teammate Tupou Vai'i impress in opening tests. Handled plenty and was accurate without being able to physically dominate the big Frenchmen.
5.) Fabian Holland – 8
Tallest timber on show at 2.04m, his giant frame looks even bigger in the black jersey. The Dutchman has been the find of the series for Razor.
4.) Patrick Tuipulotu (vc) – 8
Phenomenal effort from ABs locking duo who each played full match. The Blues skipper showed he has much to offer to a team that occasionally needs serious grunt work.
3.) Tyrel Lomax – 6
Returning from injury, he didn't get many carries.
2.) Samisoni Taukei'aho – 7
First lineout of the night went too long but the rest were better as he capitalised on hitting the taller locks. Contributed mightily with ball in hand.
1.) Ethan de Groot – 8
Handled the pill and bashed away well in an impressive first-half display. That half-chance try would have been well deserved.
Reserves:
Brodie McAlister – 7
George Bower – 7
Fletcher Newell – 8
Dalton Papali'i – 7
Christian Lio-Willie – NA
Noah Hotham – 7
Timoci Tavatavanawai – 5
Jordie Barrett – 8
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By Simon Smale , ABC Tadej Pogačar will be hoping to taste glory on the slopes of Mont Ventoux. Photo: AFP / Loic Venance Cycling's ability to assign its climbs into the legendarium of its own mythology is renowned. In a sport fuelled by tales of absolute heroism, utter villainy and the most epic of landscapes, the mythical is not such a giant leap, after all. Among the most mythologised locations of all is Mont Ventoux, which the Tour will visit for the first time since 2021 on Tuesday. Mont Ventoux holds a morbid hold over cycling. It was the scene - in 1967 - of one of the most horrifying and divisive moments in the sport's history, with the death of British former world champion Tom Simpson. On the 13th stage of that year's race - on 13 July - Simpson fell to the road in a state of delirium. As a result of a lingering stomach bug, the desperately oppressive heat and, of course, the potent mix of amphetamines and alcohol he had used to fuel his charge that day, the 29-year-old was well beyond his limit. Pierre Dumas, the Tour doctor, and Harry Hall, Simpson's team manager, attempted to resuscitate the stricken rider to no avail. He died a kilometre from the summit. There is a monument on the side of the road, at the spot where Simpson fell. British cyclists in the Tour down the years have often doffed their caps or thrown a bidon at it as an offering to go alongside the pain of their exertions, an attempt to pacify the gods who call this Alpine extremity home. Simpson's death was a brutal illustration of how the riders of the professional peloton were playing with their lives by ingesting a cocktail of drugs to push themselves harder and further than their bodies could take. Those times may be in the past, but Ventoux remains an extraordinary test. Tom Simpson died 24 hours after this photo was taken, a victim of cycling's doping culture and the punishing Mont Ventoux. Photo: AFP The Giant of Provence is not the steepest climb - it boasts an average gradient of 7.43 percent. It's not even the highest of summits, topping out at 1910m officially. It is by far the most intimidating, though. Its inclusion on the Tour de France route is far rarer than that of the other storied climbs of the Alps or Pyrenees. That scarcity adds to its mythology. After all, there is comfort in familiarity - and Ventoux is not a place for comfort.. The professional peloton has always been a kaleidoscope of colour as it winds its way through France every summer, a festival of athletic achievement and joie de vivre. On Ventoux, the palette seems, inexplicably, more muted, the multicoloured jerseys a jarring intrusion into this exposed, unnatural monument. Jacques Goddet, who directed the Tour de France from 1935 to 1986, wrote that when the Tour visited Ventoux for the first time, the riders appeared to be "these minuscule beings climbing a fiery Calvary with a backdrop of desolation". The entire mountain is crowned by glaring white limestone that looks like snow from afar, the moon from up close, and the white-hot coals of a furnace from within. Not everyone in the peloton would have visited its windswept summit, devoid of nature and frequently shrouded in ethereal clouds. It is so unlike the valleys below that as riders rise from the forested section it is as if they have been transported into some otherworldly realm. A realm where the only currency is sweat and pain and, yes, even a little fear. Provençal writer Frédéric Mistral recounted being told by a local that those who had been to Ventoux were wise not to return, but mad if they did. Madness and the Giant of Provence go hand-in-hand. France, Vaucluse, Provence, cycling on the Mont Ventoux, arrival at the top, monument in memory of Tom Simpson. Photo: AFP / Renault Philippe Whether it be riders raving in the madness of oxygen and glucose debt or Chris Froome running up the climb without his bike in 2016, the mountain seems to possess all those exposed to it. In William Fotheringham's book about Tom Simpson, Put me back on my bike, he wrote that the Ventoux, "has an aura which is not quite of this world". Its imposition across the landscape comes from its isolated position, visible for kilometres in every direction. Its shadow looms ominously for miles. Local legend says that the caves on the Ventoux lead down into hell. As the riders of the professional peloton dig deep into their personal reservoirs of resilience - legs and lungs screaming for respite - they might feel those legends have it the wrong way around. Hell is up. Any form of descent would be sweet relief. French philosopher Roland Barthes had his own views of the Ventoux, theatrically conveyed in his essay on the Tour de France in his book, Mythologies. "A god of evil, to which sacrifice must be made," he wrote of the mountain. "A veritable Moloch, despot of the cyclists, it never forgives the weak and exacts an unjust tribute of suffering." The "accursed terrain … a higher hell in which the cyclist will define the truth of his salvation" is, he describes, only conquered in one of two ways. "He will vanquish the dragon either with the help of a god, or else by pure Prometheanism, opposing this god of Evil by a still harsher demon." Heady stuff. Barthes's argument held that the fearsome Alpine and Pyrenean passes the Tour regularly features were exactly that - passes from one place to another, a necessary hardship to traverse these mighty peaks. Climbing Mont Ventoux, on the other hand, gets you nowhere other than into a world of hurt and anguish. It is just pure sadism. Pogačar climbs Mont Ventoux during the 11th stage of the Tour de France cycling race in 2021. Photo: AFP / Anne-Christine Poujoulat Luxembourger Charly Gaul, l'Ange de la Montagne (the Angel of the Mountains), was the first rider to win on a Ventoux summit finish in 1958 and was whom Barthes assumed needed the assistance of a god to help him ascend its flanks. Louison Bobet, the at-times temperamental three-time Tour de France winner who won the stage the first time Ventoux was included in the Tour, was somewhat unfairly considered that "harsher demon". When France's most famous race ascended the climb for the first time in 1951 the fallout was near-catastrophic. Swiss rider Ferdinand Kübler collapsed just short of the summit, reportedly foaming at the mouth and still pedalling as he lay on the ground. He, somewhat incredibly, managed to remount and descend to the finish in Avignon, at which point he abandoned the Tour, never to return. 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