New Zealand 19
South Africa 8
KEY POINTS:
On a day when gale force winds and snow swept through both islands, it was amazing the weather couldn't claim to be New Zealand's most destructive force.
That honour belonged to the All Blacks, who extended their phenomenal home run to 30 wins on the back of a performance that would rank up there with the best produced during the Graham Henry era.
At the heart of their effort was good old-fashioned brutality. The Boks don't do subtle and the All Blacks took them at the collision and just about edged it.
Ali Williams, in his 50th test, played as if he had inherited super powers after wearing his Spiderman outfit earlier this year. He was the everywhere man even though it looked as if he was playing with only one good leg.
Jerome Kaino didn't shirk a thing and played well enough to suggest he has a long All Black future and Rodney So'oialo delivered everything he needed to in the No 7 jersey.
That effort in the loose was nothing compared with what happened in the set-piece, where the All Blacks took the Boks on at the scrum and destroyed them.
Behind the scrum, the All Blacks had that little bit more tactical composure, that little bit more passion in the tackle and that little bit more determination when they chased kicks.
All those tiny gains added up, inch by inch, until the Boks slowly lost heart and felt the weight of history bearing down on them. When they needed to find another gear in the final quarter, they couldn't.
And they couldn't because the All Blacks didn't let up. The forwards kept hammering into contact, the lineout didn't go through its usual wobbly phase and Daniel Carter kept a firm hand on the tiller.
The killer blow appeared to be delivered by Kaino with 15 minutes to go when he beat the defence to pounce on a Carter grubber but it was ruled that the No 8 was in front of the ball. It was a close call and yet another sign that the All Blacks were making good decisions.
That's what will worry the Boks most when they sit down today and plot a way to exact revenge in Dunedin. The All Blacks weren't just intense, they were smart and mostly accurate.
They shamelessly ripped off the Crusaders' tactic of hoisting the ball high up the middle and then blitzing the catcher.
As admirably as the impressive Conrad Jantjes coped with the first part, he and Bryan Habana were often guilty of not knowing what to do next and were frequently caught and turned trying to run the ball out.
They will say that approach was justified, as it led to their first-half try when Jean de Villiers swept past Sitiveni Sivivatu's weak tackle and then timed his pass perfectly to Habana.
It was clinical stuff but only a flash. The Boks couldn't sustain anything and it felt, surprisingly, as if they had been a bit rattled by the ferocity of the exchanges.
It was a bit like Armageddon at times - bodies flying in as if the end of the world were indeed nigh.
Everyone fancied it - even little Andy Ellis had claret running down his neck, while Dan Carter, with the whole pitch open to him, pounded into Odwa Ndungane just for the sheer hell of it.
That a test against the Boks should be relentlessly physical is no surprise but there was an undercurrent of volatility following Brad Thorn's decision early in the game to pick up John Smit when the Springbok captain didn't have the ball and then plonk him on his head.
That sparked an all-in brawl and would have, rightly, fuelled a sense of injustice among the visitors that the All Black lock was presented with a rather lame talking-to by referee Stuart Dickinson rather than a card - either colour being applicable.
And the All Blacks would have been badly hurt by the temporary loss of Thorn. The former Bronco is a beast of a man who lives for the rough and tumble and the intimidation value the All Blacks lost with Jerry Collins has been gained back with interest in Thorn.
The beauty of Thorn's work and that of his team-mates was that it gave the All Blacks a sense of control, domination even, and that will be hard for South Africa to come back from.
New Zealand 19 (J. Kaino try; D. Carter con, 4 pens)
South Africa 8 (B. Habana try; B. James pen).
Halftime: 9-8
