In Focus/The All Blacks: Warren Gatland, the former Ireland and Wasps coach and current Waikato coach, gives an insight into what has made the All Blacks the best team in the world

To be honest, against England two weeks ago, I didn't think the All Blacks played that well. They did enough to win the game, but I thought there was room for improvement. To be equally honest, I thought the French game would be quite tough. The south of France on Bastille Day. That was perfect motivation for them, but the All Blacks were very impressive.

The All Blacks' set-piece has been the one area of concern in their game. There'd been a lot of criticism of the All Blacks lineout but they were pretty happy with that and their scrum against England. Two players who would have made a big difference are Keith Robinson and James Ryan, just in terms of calling and leadership.

I think they also looked at some of their defensive options just to keep teams guessing. If you look at the amount of ball they had, they didn't actually have any more than the English or the French.

They're really smart defenders, and that's one of the things I've been struck by since coming back to New Zealand. Players read the plays in front of them really well. By contrast, perhaps some of the Northern Hemisphere players will run through a system and be a little bit more programmed, whereas New Zealand really read option-taking in front of them and change their decision-making pretty late. If they see a decoy runner coming in really late, they'll see he's not going to get the ball, so they'll ignore him. Whereas sometimes in England that might be part of their defensive system, so they can get caught out a little bit.

Another striking change is the massive emphasis they have in New Zealand on what they call a games session, which they use at least once a week. These are variations of touch and entail passing forward. They're like special awareness games. I've had to incorporate it and I've seen a lot of benefits from it, because it really encourages players to identify where space is and working hard off the ball.

Also, they work really hard on what's called transition, ie when you go from defence into attack off a turnover or a counter-attack, and how quickly you can get into position and what damage you can do to the opposition. A lot of that comes down to those games sessions.

They're also conditioning sessions, and they also make training enjoyable and fun because that sort of stuff, touch rugby, is a big part of our culture when we're young, whereas in the Northern Hemisphere they might kick a soccer ball around.

When the big five teams in New Zealand are playing each other, there's a lot of tradition and history, so they're like Munster playing Leinster.

You've also got quality players in all positions so it's usually a really high standard. We had a relatively young referee for our game against Auckland and he apologised to me the next week. He'd done four Super 14 games, because he hadn't experienced the same intensity and physicality.

With that strength in depth the All Blacks rotational policy - although it's been controversial down here - has worked very well because they've carried on winning. Learning from previous World Cups, they wanted two players for every position and they've now achieved that.

They've played a very high-tempo game, with quite a bit of input from the players.

The other thing I've noticed in the 16 months at home is that we've often had the best players, and potentially the best athletes, but not always the best conditioned. They probably weren't as strong in the gym as players in the Northern Hemisphere, but they've taken that to another level too.

There's also been a huge emphasis on the set-pieces at Super 14 with the New Zealand franchise teams and provinces. All our scrums are pretty heavily analysed, with lots of dialogue between the scrummaging coaches, looking at strengths and weaknesses and improvements. There's a massive transfer of knowledge, with conferences and coaches talking to each other. It shows how transparent the whole philosophy is.

I think you've got to give Graham Henry huge credit. He's clearly learned from his time with Wales and the Lions, had a good look at himself and he's not only very inclusive in letting other people coach, but also in listening to his players.

Graham was saying this was going to be his best team, but I think he's still mixing and matching this week. Ten months before the World Cup he can afford to not lay all his cards on the table yet.

If you look at the success with Ireland, it emanates largely from having a settled squad. England have a massive playing base but don't breed confidence by changing their players so much. They always have pretty physical forward packs, but there's nothing exciting about them, like a James Forrester who can run and offload or pop up in the backs. Just a bit of variation.

Central contracting is a big factor as well, and if England could augment a more settled squad with sorting out the relationship between the clubs and the RFU, overnight English rugby would take a massive step forward.

France don't seem too sure of where they're going either. Yet if it comes to a semi-final of the World Cup New Zealand will run into a team in good form playing with a lot of confidence, and the All Blacks have that tag of being chokers.

New Zealanders have become really obsessive about winning the World Cup. After 20 years it's become like a chain around the country's neck. To reverse the trend of being the best team in the world in between World Cups, but not winning it, is going to be a really tough mental challenge for everyone.

France at home could still emerge as contenders, England as well if they can get some structure in place. Ireland don't have too many weaknesses and with their experience of winning big matches can choke any team. But trying to avoid New Zealand in the quarter-finals is important for them, in part because I think Ireland still have a bit of a mental barrier facing the All Blacks.

The challenge for Eddie O'Sullivan is that he knows he has a team good enough to reach the quarter-finals, or even the semi-finals or better, and he knows he has to win those pool games but has he got the confidence to hold a little bit back, not lay all his cards on the table, keep one or two players fresh, have just a little bit of rotation. Because that's what teams like New Zealand and one or two of the others will do.

(In an interview with Gerry Thornley).