Third and fourth place play-off: New Zealand - 40 France - 13  The calm before the storm, the frolics before the slugfest. To say the All Blacks wanted this third-fourth place play-off more would be an overstatement, it was more that France wanted it less.

Despite giving their theoretically more motivated second stringers only their second run-out of the tournament, France found that one encounter against the USA Eagles three weeks ago was inadequate preparation for a meeting with even these under-inspired All Blacks. They looked like a team who had switched off this World Cup some time ago.

Fielding a much stronger selection, the All Blacks forgot their acute sense of anti-climax sufficiently to run in a handsome six-try-to-one victory without ever looking like they weren't still in mourning over their semi-final defeat to the Wallabies.

No one did more to illuminate a subdued night than Carlos Spencer, though the good-humoured, cosmopolitan and colourful attendance of 62,712 was a credit to the tournament again. The knockers will say he did it when the pressure was off. But he was heavily involved in almost everything positive and creative about the All Blacks' display. Varying his game to the hilt, his full box of tricks was on display. Up-and-unders, grubbers, chips, banana kicks, sidesteps, dummy passes, skip passes, short passes and reverse passes.

Anyone who can't enjoy this needs to get out more.

The net result was six tries, liberally sprinkled through the team, with three for the famed outside three of Doug Howlett, Mils Muliaina and Joe Rokocoko.

This makes them the top three try scorers in the competition, with 20 between them; Howlett and Muliaina leading the way with seven each.

France were a big disappointment. As had been shown in the warm-ups against England in August, there's a big gap between their first and second stringers.

Putting their boots to the ball far too often in the first half especially, they lacked any will to build a performance, and looked overawed by the opposition.

Pepito Elhorga, after returning from his father's funeral in France last week, was an honourable exception, defending and attacking with a zest that wasn't shared by many of his team-mates, as was the big-tackling Sebastien Chabal.

On a hot, stiflingly humid night, it was mostly a true rugby audience, or at any rate less of a partisan and parochial crowd. When Spencer led the All Blacks' Haka it was given due respect and applauded, unlike last Saturday when the Aussie crowd churlishly drowned it out with Waltzing Matilda.

With the first attacking ploy, Spencer launched a huge up-and-under, which prompted the question as to why they didn't do that last Saturday. In any event, Elhorga took a fine catch under pressure and returned it for a 60-metre touch-find.

Recent history did nearly repeat itself when Elhorga almost held on to a flat, skip pass by Spencer. Feeding off All Black errors, the French would have struck the first blow but for a couple of unlucky bounces off kicks ahead, while Gerald Merceron missed a kickable penalty.

But this did little to deter Spencer or these All Blacks from their customary approach, from whatever distance. Inside halfway, Spencer's sleight of hand enabled Howlett to sprint on to the outhalf's disguised inside pass and then exchange passes with Leon MacDonald before Chris Jack scored off Jerry Collins's feed from the recycle.

For his next trick, Spencer ran across field and Muliaina broke through from inside halfway on a cutback from Spencer's switch pass, and then put Howlett over on his inside. There were other moments, too, Spencer jinking through before Muliaina failed to gather his reverse pass, then Howlett latching on to Spencer's clever chip but Carter was tackled from behind by Tony Marsh as soon as he took the offload.

All France had to show for their fairly lifeless first-half efforts were a penalty and a drop goal by Dimitri Yachvili, roundly booed by most except the French supporters. But whatever Bernard Laporte said at half-time, his words coupled with a triple substitution had an immediate impact.

Upping their desire and tempo, sustained pressure off a knock-on by Mauger which Yachvili latched on to - with Patrick Tabacco twice carrying hard - culminated in Yachvili's long skip pass and the deserving Elhorga taking a sharp inside line off David Bory's inside pass.

They had their dander up now, and were threatening to make a match of it. But a triple whammy inside eight minutes finished them off. The first required a lucky bounce for the All Blacks as Aaron Mauger's attempted touch-finder was half charged down and fell into Richard McCaw's path.

The All Blacks were again much quicker to the breakdown and had numbers aplenty as Spencer and Reuben Thorne combined to put Rokocoko over.

They were again sharper and more alert when Steve Devine and Howlett combined off the latter's quick throw for Brad Thorn to score and then a couple of good rumbles up the middle by Howlett ended with Spencer and Mauger putting Muliaina over with ease, time and space.

To their credit, France averted a rout, withstanding one multiple-phase attack on their line after Howlett had just failed to score off a Spencer chip, though the scoreline was given a more realistic look when Marty Holah, who'd be a shoo-in on most Test teams, drove over from a lineout fully 15 metres out with much furious leg-pumping.

So the All Blacks finished third in the world, but as Thorne said afterwards "we were here to win." They'd failed again, but again entertained us more than anyone, and yet again easily finished as the tournament's top try scorers. A muted, half-hearted, half-lap enabled them to make a poignant farewell to the tournament, and they were warmly applauded, particularly by the blocks of black in the crowd.

Scoring sequence: 12 mins: Jack try, MacDonald con 7-0; 16 mins: Yachvili pen 7-3; 20 mins: Howlett try, Carter con 14-3; 34 mins: Yachvili drop goal 14-6; (half-time 14-6); 42 mins: Elhorga try, Yachvili con 14-13; 51 mins: Rokocoko try, Carter con 21-13; 53 mins: Thorn try, Carter con 28-13; 58 mins: Muliaina try, Carter con 35-13; 74 mins: Holah try 40-13.

NEW ZEALAND: M Muliaina; D Howlett, L MacDonald, A Mauger, J Rokocoko; C Spencer, S Devine; D Hewett, K Mealamu, G Somerville, C Jack, A Williams, R Thorne (capt), J Collins, R McCaw. Replacements: M Holah for McCaw (15-21 mins) and for Collins (43 mins), D Carter for MacDonald (18 mins), B Thorn for Williams (48 mins), C Hoeft for Hewett (69 mins), M Hammett for Mealamu (71 mins), C Ralph for Carter (76 mins), Carter for Mauger (77 mins).

FRANCE: C Poitrenaud; P Elhorga, T Marsh, D Traille, D Bory; G Merceron, D Yachvili; S Marconnet, Y Bru (capt), J-B Poux, D Auradou, T Privat, P Tabacco, C Labit, S Chabal. Replacements: N Brusque for Poitrenaud (27 mins), J-J Crenca for Poux, F Pelous for Privat, B Liebenberg for Marsh (all half-time), R Ibanez for Bru (54 mins), O Magne for Tabacco (57 mins), Poux for Marconnet (59 mins), F Michalak for Merceron (65 mins).

Referee: C White (England).