Sports Comment with Nick Tolerton | Canterbury Sport | Surfing, Rugby, Soccer, Football, Cricket in Canterbury

Still 51 days to go to the World Cup, but some of the battle lines in France are already as visible as a Somme trench.

Whatever they do on the field, the All Blacks are also going to have to win the Richie McCaw propaganda war if they are to win the World Cup.

Google "McCaw" and "cheating" and you get more than 56,000 results.

And, surprise, surprise, it was all on again after last Saturday's test at Jade.

Novice Springbok skipper Johann Muller launched a prolonged attack on McCaw after the game. And his coach Jake White said "I agree with everything my captain says."

Warming up for this Saturday's Tri Nations-Bledisloe Cup decider in Auckland, Wallabies coach John Connolly is likely to be cautious about giving the ABs any motivational ammunition. But the Aussie media is wibbling on his behalf.

Aussie rugby writers claim rookie Welsh test ref Nigel Owens will be intimidated into letting McCaw, as one unnamed "Wallaby insider" said, "get away with murder." Opponents can't outplay McCaw. But coaches and captains can heap pressure on refs and undermine the All Blacks' confidence in a strength area, and that will happen even more at the World Cup.

# Got to admire fans like No.2 Son and his girlfriend who came up from Dunedin on Friday night for the test. The heating packed up on the bus before they left Dunedin, and the lights failed at Temuka. They waited an hour on a freezing night for a replacement bus from Timaru and arrived here in the early hours. And all to watch a test with 10min of excitement. It might have been a valuable step on the road to France for the ABs management, but entertainment it wasn't.

With one test to go before the World Cup and players rotating as merrily as ever, the combination in the backline sometimes looked like the first match of the season rather than one away from the World Cup.

"The attitude and desire are right we've just got to get more accurate," said Graham Henry. Attitude and desire should always be right for All Blacks, and after six tests this year it's time the accuracy was.

While he praised the impact his bench players made, it was against a team whose legs were going after defending for 10min with 14 men. For the third Tri Nations match this season, a team that had lost a guy to a yellow card collapsed, emphasising how important it will be to avoid sin-binnings in France.

Meanwhile, Graham, spare a thought for suffering fans like No. 2 Son. He's probably living on Chef in his student flat this week after blowing his readies for the trip.