France players during their Pool D game against Ireland at Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, Wales.

AFP/London

French players are being put through cryotherapy sessions to soothe their aches and pains while building themselves into a “rage” to convince themselves they can beat the All Blacks in the World Cup quarter-finals.
Drained by their defeat by Ireland, Les Bleus led by veteran captain Thierry Dusautoir now find themselves overwhelming favourites to be beaten by New Zealand at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium on Saturday. They are not happy.
The team cryotherapy truck, especially brought over from France, is parked outside the upmarket Celtic Manor resort where they are staying. The truck offers evidence of their suffering in the 24-9 defeat by Ireland in their final Pool D match.
The whole-body ice bath carried out inside helps speed the body’s recovery. And the French have only six days from the Ireland game to be ready for their next battle in Cardiff.  
France have had the All Blacks odds against them before and pulled off stunning victories at the 1999 and 2007 World Cups. But this time they are hurting inside as well and want the defending champions to suffer the backlash.  
During a break from rugby training on Tuesday, some players tried to relax playing football with a tennis ball. Others pushed weights.
Dusautoir will have the main unifying task in the team. French coach Philippe Saint-Andre, who leaves after the World Cup, and his staff are drawing up the match strategy.
“Quite honestly, this will be a game that will stay engraved in our memories for a long time,” said hooker Benjamin Kayser.

No regrets
“The plan is that we must have absolutely no regrets and prepare for a revolt, create a huge rage so that we can fully express our potential.”
Fullback Brice Dulin also spoke with unashamed emotion.
“I do not want to stop here. I really don’t,” he said.  
“I am here to give everything, the 23 on that match sheet as well. If we have got this far, after all this effort, the years spent in difficulty, it cannot be for nothing.
“Sometimes I think people think we get a pleasure out of being average. That is not the case, I assure you.”
Despite their famous wins in 1999 and 2007, when New Zealand lost in the quarter-final, their earliest exit ever, France have not had a good run against the All Blacks.
France won the next game in New Zealand two years later, but have lost all eight Tests played since.
The French suffered heartbreak when they were beaten 8-7 in the final four years ago at the All Blacks fortress of Eden Park in Auckland.
But veteran prop Nicolas Mas said France had at least showed the All Blacks can be rattled.  
“If we can make them have doubts we can do something,” he said.  
“We must not lose confidence because the next game will be even more important. There can be no distractions.
“We must be united. It’s a week where we say that this may be the last. It’s special. If we lose, it is over.”

All Blacks appeal for France to keep it clean
The All Blacks have appealed for Saturday’s World Cup quarter-final against France to have no repeat of the “filth” that has marred previous clashes between the rivals.
There were several incidents in the bitter 2011 final including the eye-gouging of All Blacks skipper Richie McCaw, who in turn was accused of kneeing French fly-half Morgan Parra in the back. McCaw later accused the French of getting “filthy” in the tense final won 8-7 by the All Blacks, saying: “The French are worse when they are scared.”   Tension started even before kick-off when Thierry Dusautoir’s fired up French battalion advanced on the All Blacks during the pre-match haka, a protocol breach for which they were later fined. In 1999, after France beat the All Blacks in the semi-finals, prop Franck Tournaire was accused but cleared of biting All Blacks captain Taine Randall. New Zealand team doctor John Mayhew also claimed other All Blacks had complained about being eye-gouged, head-butted and having their testicles grabbed.  However, backrower Kieran Read led an All Blacks chorus on Tuesday that there was no room for off-the-ball manoeuvres and they wanted them kept out of Saturday’s do-or-die clash. “The game doesn’t need that,” Read said. “This game’s a great game and we want to showcase the talents we’ve got within. So we’ll play it as hard as we can physically but certainly as fair as we can. “If teams are going to start doing that then you’ve got to adapt as quickly as you can.”
Fellow loose forward Jerome Kaino was pleased that with the use of immediate video replays, referees have been able to clamp down on violence, which he said was not part of the All Blacks armoury.  
“We don’t go into a game thinking about that kind of stuff,” he said.
“Our sole focus has been to get our game going and we’ve seen the trend of referees how they’ve been in this World Cup and you don’t want to be on that side of the referees where you get carded and cost your team.  
“We want to be clean. Play hard but fair but we don’t want that kind of stuff.” However, lock Luke Romano indicated a totally clean game could not be guaranteed in such a high-stakes match. “Every team is going out there to win and every team will do everything they can to win. It’s a quarter-final at the Rugby World Cup. If you lose you go home. “The French will throw everything at us and we will throw everything back at them.”  The most notorious incident in All Blacks-France rugby rivalry came in 1986 in the game now known as the “Battle of Nantes”.