Five talking points from the test in Sydney and where to go if you've missed the warmth of old school rugby watching.
1) No, Ian Foster didn't need to go into a phone booth and get a Superman outfit before the 43-5 massacre in Sydney. He already knew what he was doing.
During the time he was coach of the Chiefs, Foster once talked to his young son about the way the bagging he'd received after a couple of bad games had turned to lavish praise when the team won back to back matches. "I'm still the same coach, whether we win or lose" he said. "We can't worry about what other people say."
During this Bledisloe Cup campaign, media commentators have advised Foster to copy Warrors' coach Todd Payton, to follow the example of Dave Rennie when it comes to nurturing young players, to stop his team playing like "a lamb in wolf's clothing", and that the dominating 27-7 win at Eden Park was still "a failure."
What's actually happened is that the All Blacks, after a very scratchy start in Wellington, have got better and better with every game.That's what happens when a talented group is very well coached.
2) And no, for the same reasons Foster told his son, the big loss doesn't suddenly make Dave Rennie a lousy coach.
You can only play the hand you're dealt, and Rennie, who we know is astute and hard working, has to work with some duds.
Poor Noah Lolesio had the sort of test debut at first-five that will find him waking, trembling and sweating from nightmares, for the rest of his life. He's been a good player for the Brumbies, but 20 is way too young to be a game controller at international level, and he was more exposed than a lost polar bear cub on a lonely ice floe.
It didn't help Lolesio and the rest of his backline that the Wallaby forwards were beaten every which way to Sunday. They were monstered in the scrum, and their inability to stop All Black lineout drives was embarrassing. The All Blacks, it's now clear, gritted their teeth after too often being bested in Wellington, and decided to teach some hard bitten lessons.
Wallaby No.8 Harry Wilson, for example, was a baby faced bully in Wellington, where, amongst a horde of niggly examples, he got away with a brutal late charge on Richie Mo'unga. In Sydney he somehow escaped punishment for a no arms shoulder charge to the head that saw Sam Cane leave the field. But by and large Wilson watched a lot of the game on his back, after being knocked over by legal, but fierce, All Black tackles.
Rennie now has a week to persuade his group to concentrate on playing rugby, to think clearly, to concentrate on core jobs, and to put the fawning press clippings after the first test into a bottom drawer and forget them. The juvenile, macho swagger that infected them after what was, after all, only a draw in Wellington, should have already been knocked out of them by the All Blacks.
3) Go you good thing.
As any great first-five should be, Richie Mo'unga is calculating and accurate. What sets him apart is that he's got real speed, and a fantastic step. His 20th minute try, which involved swerving like a world class wing past two defenders, was my try of the test.
4) There really isn't any substitute for it.
"My experience (as coach of) Wales had taught me that you can't get rid of all the old guys," Steve Hansen told me just before the 2015 World Cup. "You have to have that experience to win tests."
Step forward Sam Whitelock, 32 last month, and playing in his 118th test with the enthusiasm he brought to his first, back in 2010 against Ireland in New Plymouth. In Sydney he carried, he tackled, and, yep, he even stole a turnover at a breakdown. Mo'unga had to be the man of the match, but Whitelock was a photo finish runner up.
5) Talking like a dick is bad enough, but playing like one is much worse.
Two days ago I was rubbishing Filipo Daugunu for his attempts to verbally intimidate Caleb Clarke. The problem with that sort of pathetic chest thumping is that sometimes players start to believe their own gibberish.
Daugunu's tackle (because that's what it was, a tackle) of Clarke while the All Black wing was high in the air may have squeaked past getting a red card under the rules, but only because Clarke didn't land on his head or break his neck.
Upending a player who's defenceless because he's off his feet is a part of the game that's as dangerous and gutless as kicking a man in the head who's on the ground. Rugby knocks bodies around enough, without allowing actions that can literally maim, or even kill, someone.
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Finally, the wonderful democracy of a rugby crowd, which I've loved since I was a teenager watching club games in Waihi, has never been better expressed than at the thrilling Farah Palmer Cup final, won 8-7 by Canterbury over Waikato at Rugby Park in Christchurch.
Super Rugby and tests tend to divide the haves from the have nots, but on Saturday I spent the first half with Trevor Mallard, the Speaker of the House, after spotting him standing on his own on the grass bank.
I discovered that his Black Fern daughter, Beth, had been in the senior Wellington squad since she was 13, and how much he admired the day's referee, Rebecca Mahoney, for the fact she still gives her time to refereeing lower level club games.
Moving further up the bank, leaning against the back fence, the second half was enlivened by meeting flag-toting Mel Brooker, a hairdresser from Oxford in North Canterbury, whose 21-year-old daughter, Black Fern Grace, is Canterbury's vice-captain.
Grace, said Mel, had always loved rugby, and, at Christchurch Girls' High School, after being told the school wouldn't field a sevens side, went ahead anyway and organised one with a friend. She was brave enough, when quizzed by the principal, to say that "we've already entered the team in the Condor nationals." And that's how CGHS started playing sevens.
Add in a bouncy castle, and face painting for the kids, and the day was a magic, sun drenched, reminder of how, at its best, sport can so easily leap social boundaries.
Mike Thorpe argues the numbers suggest that they are.