Another win, they will say, and this one in the lair of a major competitor. What’s more, these All Blacks demonstrate once again the priceless advantage of insight and precision – in short a natural affinity for the finer arts of a sport with such a premium on power.
But the wider rugby world may feel that another fleck of paint has been chipped off the black sheen. Not so much by England – although they were plenty responsible for roughing up their visitors – but by the way the All Blacks could outscore them three tries to one and still have to rely on opposition inaccuracy to hold on for the win.
Then again, no one said this outfit are anything more than a work in progress. Those three tries were conjured in classic style by these nonpareils with ball in hand, but the opportunity for England’s one try, just as brilliantly finished, was presented as a gift by a tendency to overplay that would be harder to imagine in the time of Dan Carter et al.
That England were in the match at all at that point was courtesy of an inexperience on the discipline front that, again, Richie McCaw and co are not remembered for. This time Marcus Smith, after his travails from the tee in the first Test this year between these two, in Dunedin in the summer, was not in the mood to let them off, landing all six of his shots at goal, the first three for the same offence.
Jordie Barrett was perhaps unlucky to be penalised for his tackle off the ball on Chandler Cunningham-South. It was a reasonable decision to block the England flanker on the assumption Maro Itoje was not about to throw a dummy, and Chandler-South brushed him aside anyway. But a tackle off the ball is a tackle off the ball, and that put the All Blacks 3-0 down in the fourth minute.
Although the next star, surely, in the New Zealand firmament, Wallace Sititi, pulled off a wonder offload to send Mark Tele’a away for his first try five minutes later, Asofa Aumua smashed Smith some time after the ball had left the latter’s hands and another three points were chipped away.
So over to that instinct again. Beauden Barrett has long epitomised the All Blacks in the post-Carter era, absolutely unplayable on his day but less able to boss a game – or, to put it another way, play with composure when it is not his day. Nevertheless, the guy has more than 100 caps, which is a fair reflection of his genius.
There is something joyous about his ability to see things others cannot, easy to imagine him with a grin on his face as he senses another opportunity. “Ah-ha, yes, this is on,” his entire being seems to say, suddenly beetling off on a tangent beyond the ken of anyone else, bar perhaps those in black who respond accordingly.
Such was the script for try No 2, when he veered to the blindside in the blink of an eye, calling to his young scrum-half and then turning the ball inside for another of those deadly All Blacks finishers that come along more often than they do in any other side, with a try count roughly equal to their tally of caps. Will Jordan cut the line to perfection. In the context of a slightly rusty England’s worthy recycling game, it represented another dart to where it hurts most. No one else plays the rugby of the gods quite so reliably.
But there is more to rugby than that, and this New Zealand team does not quite conjure fear like the Springboks do, or Ireland. Another tackle off the ball by, of all people, Sam Cane coughed up Smith’s penalty No 3, before Tyrel Lomax was penalised at a scrum to keep England only two points down at the break.
It was four minutes into the second half, when the balance shifted in favour of the home side. Beauden Barrett was running hard and flat at the defence, and this time Cortez Ratima, his scrum-half, could not find him but Smith instead, who set up a fine counterattacking try for Immanuel Feyi-Waboso. Smith’s fifth penalty, on the hour, posed a proper test for the All Blacks.
To their credit, they responded. Damian McKenzie, a player very much in the Beauden Barrett mould, was now on. His hands and feet played their part in all of the 10 points New Zealand reserved, as they always used to, for the part of the match that hurts most – on this occasion the last 15 minutes.
Tele’a was worked over out wide with four minutes remaining. That proved enough. A fourth defeat in their eighth match of the season had been averted. But the watching world will have noted that England were only a coat of paint away from knocking a few more flecks off that black sheen.
