All Black fullback cum winger Cory Jane says the return of centre Conrad Smith is a "huge" boost to the confidence of the misfiring backline.

The 22-test veteran has recovered from a hamstring injury to take the place of Auckland utility Isaia Toeava for the second test against the French in Wellington on Saturday.

"It's huge. He's a good talker, he's a leader and when anyone is getting a bit anxious or a bit too excited he'll come and calm everyone down," Jane told Yahoo!Xtra.

"If you're under a bit of pressure you can go talk to him and get a bit of advice from him on where to stand or what you're doing wrong."

The Hurricanes combination of Smith and Ma'a Nonu have been reunited after the first test's pairing of Nonu and Toeava made uncharacteristic errors in the face of a flat French defence.

And the pressure is even greater this week after the 27-22 loss in Dunedin as the All Blacks seek to deny the French a first series victory in New Zealand since 1994.

Jane, who started his first All Blacks test in an unfamiliar left-wing role last week, was heralded as one of the few successes from the shock loss.

But he still sees plenty of room for improvement in his own game - including picking the right time to go for a roam.

"I just want to try and get around the field and chase the kicks. Put a bit more pressure on them and try to get involved more," he says.

And that will have to include a lifting in the intensity levels all round the field after the French dominated the first test.

"The French came out, they were passionate and physical, we weren't and we got beaten up for it," says Jane.

"We let them get our ball because no-one wanted to go in there and be physical and try and clean them off the ball as much as we should have."

Despite the lambasting their performance has been given off the field the Hurricanes' fullback believes there were enough positives out of last week's game to give the players some confidence.

"We just need to go out there and be physical with them and get the option taking right. They left us a few opportunities but we didn't pick up on them, we didn't talk enough and didn't get the moves right so we've been working hard on those things," he says.

"Early on it was a tight battle. We put up a few kicks and they were dropping them. They weren't to keen to catch the ball at the back. So we had them under pressure in a sense and then a couple of tries and we were on the back foot."

But the second half was different.

"When we came out we got on the front foot and we started to dominate them. We started getting a bit more physical, we started getting more penalties because they were going backwards."

Then came the intercept try and with it the game.

But last week's performance will go to the back of the mind when the team runs out at a packed Westpac Stadium on Saturday knowing the fans are demanding a win.

And the answer could be quite simple.

"If we can start the way we did in that second half we'll go a long way to trying to win the game," Jane says.