Patience and adjustment key to All Blacks success

For all the hype building into this match, one would not have predicted that Dan Carter was but one conversion from helping the All Blacks surpass the biggest score ever achieved by New Zealand over Australia in a test match.

To win 49-28 was far beyond any pre-match expectations.

To start, any potential dismantling of how good this All Blacks team is must be put aside now.

Some would argue that numerous opposition disciplinary cards, two of them red this season, that their foes have earned this season have scuttled the test matches and allowed the All Blacks to run rampant.

Others will say that teams playing the All Blacks have not really seemed to impose their game plan or hit their straps.

The best way to rubbish this suggestion is to reflect on a comment by beaten coach Robbie Deans, who is now just one test loss away from equaling the worst ever run by the Wallabies against the All Blacks, a record that has stood for 63 years.

Deans, after the All Blacks had beaten the Springboks, said that it wasn’t so much that the South Africans were playing poorly, as much as they were thrown off rhythm and consistently backpedaling due to immense pressure from Richie McCaw and his men.

To say that the All Blacks back-to-back victories over a “declining” Springboks were fortuitous is one thing, but the Wallabies showed enough form at Suncorp Stadium when beating the same side to suggest they would be able to match New Zealand in many facets.

But again, they like every other side of late, were thrown off their rhythm.

A similar thought occurred when the Wallabies suffered their second yellow card, which resulted in an automatic sending off of Drew Mitchell in the 43rd minute.

That offence, for preventing play via a quick restart, ironically was one that Australian captain Rocky Elsom had brought to the attention of Craig Joubert, with the All Blacks the initial transgressors.

Elsom and the Wallabies, clearly frustrated at the All Blacks grip on the game, lost their poise at key moments.

When the test captain is told by a referee to calm down and not get angry, you know that things are not proceeding to plan.

That in many respects was the difference between the sides – and for that matter is arguably the distinction between the All Blacks and the rest of the world.

The visitors, who in the process won their 12th test match, and have scored a remarkable 44 test tries during that streak, adjusted as the game played out.

While no doubt the argument will again arise this week that McCaw and the All Blacks are a protected species (they did not win the penalty count in Melbourne, 15 to New Zealand and 12 to Australia), they are cannier than any other side.

This is a clever All Blacks team.

But they are also cool under pressure.

Credit must go to the Wallabies for their fightback in the second half, despite being a man down, but the All Blacks, who numerous times defended against attacks that registered 15,16 and 17 phases, stood firm.

New Zealand test teams in the past have been accused of having a soft mental underbelly.

However this hybrid under McCaw, a side with 700 test caps in the starting XV tonight, seems to have a psychological edge.

And this is now extended to a mental hold over the Wallabies, a side over the professional era that has often caused issues for the All Blacks when mind games have occurred.

With the exorcising of the Springboks grip over them in Auckland and Wellington, the All Blacks are now taking steps to spread their dominance, and for now are far and away the best side in world rugby.

They may be peaking too soon, if we had to talk about their form in World Cup terms, but the challenge for any other side is to try and match a team that appears to be getting better and better with each outing.

The most pleasing aspect of this game was that the All Blacks, with no obvious weakness at this time, clearly in a hot streak, also showed their ability to shut down a team.

Not only did they play with the tempo that has been the hallmark of their play in 2010, but they operated in a manner to ensure that the genesis of the Wallabies attack and strategies were cut off before they generated momentum.

Many great boxers have said that their punches and defence were not what won them championships, but their ability to adjust to an opponent or a fight, and the patience to overcome a foe without losing their cool.

For now, the All Blacks are the heavyweight champions – en route to both the Investec Tri-Nations and the Bledisloe Cup – and they are delivering all the knockout punches.