French halfback Baptiste Serin has made no secret of the fact that retaining possession will be vital to beating the All Blacks in Paris on Sunday morning (NZT).
Having only narrowly lost to New Zealand less than a year ago, France named a very different looking team to the one that almost beat the World Champions.
Serin stressed the importance for his countrymen to starve the visitors of the ball and to work hard throughout the game to win it back.
"We want to keep the ball or when we give to them the ball, we want to make good aggressively when they have it," Serin said.
"We have to stay concentrated during 80 minutes, keep the ball, and make some tries when we have possibilities.
"They're really good on counter-attack and when they don't have the ball, it's better for the other team."
Despite the dangers Steve Hansen's men pose, Serin is confident France will not shy away from throwing the ball around, but does make the point they cannot afford a repeat last year's mistakes.
"It was so close, but lost a lot off ball and New Zealand made two tries too easy with an intercept ball and with a kick, it's too easy for them," Serin said.
"The objective when we play a rugby game, we want to win.
"We have to control the field and when we are on the second part of the field, we want to carry the ball to advance to win a lot of yards to make a try."
French head coach Guy Noves has seemingly adopted a baptism by fire approach to kick-off the November tests, with first-five debutant Anthony Belleau and 20-year-old halfback Antoine Dupont trusted with the starting duties.
If expectations were not high enough for Belleau to steer his side to what would be a famous victory, Serin believes the 21-year-old has the ability to cause New Zealand trouble and has the support of all his teammates.
"He's really good, he attacks really good and I want to say to the All Blacks, be careful," Serin said.
"He's a complete player, he run, got a good kick, he passes to the two sides, he's very good.
"We have a lot of players with experience and they have to help two young players, but the whole team have to trust them, it's no problem for us."
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