It was a period in which the All Blacks strung together passages of scarcely believable continuity that involved a lot of oversized men showing delicate, soft skills and an astute reading of space all wrapped up in a power base that was simply too much for Japan at times.
It looked like rugby from the future – athletes built for collisions but playing a style of rugby that was all about creating and exploiting space.
The two jumbo props, Pasilio Tosi and Tamaiti Williams, looked so comfortable on the ball that it was easy to forget they carry almost 300kg between them.
Wallace Sititi gave further confirmation that he’s built – physically and mentally – to play at this level, and that if the coaches want to chuck him the No 8 jersey in future tests, they are unlikely to regret it.
And perhaps the real star of the show was Mark Tele’a, who seemed to be acutely conscious of the possibility he may not get another game on this tour given the competition for wing spots, so decided to make the most of it.
He popped up, as he loves doing, at the back of plenty of rucks to twist and wriggle countless extra metres, and if he had any space at all, he was devastating.
His performance will have been duly noted by the coaching group, and if they needed a little confidence boost to start thinking about him more favourably again, they certainly got one.
There was more to the All Blacks’ first-half blitz, though, than just individual expression, and nor was it all made possible because Japan simply lacked the quality to stop it.
The other big shift the All Blacks made was in the alignment of their attack with a willingness at times to play on the cusp of the gain line. To operate effectively there, the passing has to be sharp, carefully weighted, immaculately timed and perfectly executed.
And it mostly, it was, the best example coming from Billy Proctor’s try, which was a result of four supremely effective passes straight off a scrum.
This sort of precision passing was not in the All Blacks’ wheelhouse when they played England in July. Back then, they struggled to find their rhythm against what – at the time at least – was the best rush defence in the world game.
And with that in mind, clearly the All Blacks were trialling a flat attack structure in Japan with thoughts of how it could possibly work if implemented in Europe.
It’s a hard question to answer because the difference between playing the world’s 13th-ranked team in the 23C humidity of Yokohama, against encountering the world’s fourth-ranked team in the late autumnal setting of London, is too significant to get caught up over promoting various individuals or strategic approaches to utilise in the latter because they showed up well in the former.
But the theory of launching attacks from the gain line does at least make sense, no matter the opposition. When it’s done well it pushes the risk-reward scenario in favour of the attacking team.
It’s also where Damian McKenzie looks most comfortable because his first steps are typically east to west and he immediately forces defenders into having to make a split second decision about whether to go for him or cover the space he’s looking to run into.
It’s obviously significantly harder to execute when the defence is bringing more line-speed than the Japanese and there is a greater variety of tactical execution in the wider strategic wheelhouse.
Japan’s coach Eddie Jones revealed that he had specifically challenged his team to not kick the ball, on the basis that he wants that notion to be ingrained in their DNA by the time the 2027 World Cup swings around.
That meant there was an incredible amount of aerobic content and fatigue generated space for the All Blacks to exploit – something that’s unlikely to be the case next week at Twickenham.
Gregor Paul is one of New Zealand’s most respected rugby writers and columnists. He has won multiple awards for journalism and written several books about sport.
