Kieran Read called him the man with ice in his veins and Aaron Cruden didn't dispel that suggestion after his team's epic test comeback when asked if that kick was the most important in his life.
His answer? "I'd say so, yep."
The Irish, who had charged an earlier conversiontoo early, hadn't learned their lesson and allowed him another chance when his first effort drifted to the right. Almost inevitably, the second dropped neatly over.
"I suppose I was lucky the second one went through the posts," he said. Luck had little to do with it. He got his chance to start this test after Dan Carter's Achilles injury suffered last week at Twickenham and Cruden has come so far there is barely a murmur if Carter is unavailable.
Having played such an important role with the Chiefs over the past two seasons, that poise is being transferred to the test arena and the All Blacks are benefiting hugely.
His ability to block out the helterskelter finish, the booing of the crowd and the overall drama of the situation is a credit to that poise and mental strength.
His goalkicking hasn't been great this year due to his nagging groin injury. It came good just when he needed it to.
"I don't think it just comes down to the kick," he said. "With 30 seconds to go we were able to come up with a penalty which was pretty crucial. The boys tapped and went quickly. We just stayed to our game plan, we identified space down that left hand side and got over in the corner.
"We knew if we were able to stay in the fight the momentum would start to turn which it did. It took a long time to wrestle the momentum from the Irish ...
"We wanted to put in a quality performance to finish the tour and that probably wasn't it, but ... we were able to fight back and just show the heart that lives under the silver fern on the black jersey."
