Amid the many milestones, maintained records and the treasured triumph against the Springboks lies the elusive secret sauce the All Blacks must bottle to replicate performances such as this.
All Blacks typically, throughout history, respond to intense, white-noise pressure.
With their home on the line, with the back-to-back World Cup champions threatening to storm the fortress, with their spiritual leader to honour, the All Blacks harnessed that consuming backdrop to deliver the most important victory of Scott Robertson’s tenure.
Ardie Savea put it best, though, when he challenged the All Blacks to bottle the mindset that sparked the necessarily physicality from the forward pack which propelled them to a win that broke a four-match losing run against the Springboks.
“This is our home but every stadium in New Zealand is our home,” Savea said as he celebrated his 100th All Blacks test. “That’s the mindset we should have. We shouldn’t wait for Eden Park to get up with a performance like that. We’ll enjoy tonight and then go down to Wellington and try to do a job down there.
“Keep bringing the pressure. As a player, you thrive on that and it makes you want to do better. It gets the knots in the gut and makes me want to perform. That’s what the people of this nation deserve and that’s what we’re expected to do as All Blacks.”
Robertson has witnessed four defeats in his 20 games as All Blacks coach. The backdrop to this test, though, is comparable to no other.
With Sir Wayne Smith in camp, Sir Graham Henry stopping in and Sir Michael Jones among those to share the significance of Eden Park’s now 51-match unbeaten status, there was no escaping the magnitude of this occasion – particularly after a humbling first defeat in Argentina.
With a week to recover and improve before the rematch with the Boks in Wellington, the All Blacks will now be tasked with grasping that same level of focus and intent.
“That’s the challenge of it all. You only learn through experience,” Robertson said. “We can do all the mental skill work during the week and our preparation and huddles but when you’re out there then you put it into action. Scooter [captain Scott Barrett] and the leadership group were immense this week. They did a great job to own key parts to help us be better.
“We were locked in. We didn’t want to waste the lesson from Argentina. Our performance hurt us. Our care wasn’t high enough. Our preparation wasn’t good enough so this week was where it needed to be.
“When you play a World Cup-winning team that’s very experienced, you’re never going to win every moment and you’ve got to stay in the fight. It turned into a scrap but we kept competing and won the ones that mattered.”
In wet, greasy conditions, this match was never going to be pretty. A brutal dogfight, punctuated by box-kicking, ensued.
The All Blacks largely defused the high-ball bombardment and their forwards met the South Africans head-on but they didn’t have it all their own way, with the Springboks pulling off one huge tighthead scrum shunt that turned the contest on its head.
While the All Blacks backs scored three tries, with Will Jordan, Quinn Tupaea and Emoni Narawa crossing, defence was the backbone of their breakthrough success.
Rieko Ioane pulled off a try-saving tackle by holding up hulking Springboks prop Ox Nche and Savea, who switched between No 7 and eight, stepped up with a typically talismanic breakdown penalty on his line with two minutes remaining.
Captain Scott Barrett and Tupou Vaa’i also led the charge, pressuring Springboks halfback Grant Williams into an erratic performance.
Defence is defined by attitude. It’s that element the All Blacks must seek to replicate after their dispiriting 1-1 tour to Argentina.
“We turned up on Monday with a real attitude to defend our home territory and you can see that in the way the guys fronted tonight,” Barrett said.
“I’m proud of the way the guys fronted for Ardie. He’s a spiritual leader in our team so we wanted to make that special.
“On the back of Argentina and a week at home, there was a lot of self-reflection individually on how we can get better. We fronted up from day one when we rejoined in Auckland and the performance reflected that. We need to go again next week.”
Liam Napier is a Senior Sports Journalist and Rugby Correspondent for the New Zealand Herald. He is a co-host of the Rugby Direct podcast.