Test football, particularly against the Boks, is so often reduced to a one-dimensional business of toughness.
They make everything gladiatorial and at Eden Park, with the rain on and off, this was exclusively a game about the forwards – a straight-out test of hardness punctuated with a quite unbelievable number of box kicks - and the All Blacks passed.
As the second half wore on, it increasingly felt like the All Blacks were holding on, resisting but only just. That didn’t make for easy watching, but the critical point was that they held on.
Last year when they played the Boks, that was the thing they couldn’t do. They couldn’t stop the green machine from building irresistible pressure and smashing over the top of them in the last 20 minutes.
But at Eden Park, the black wall stayed up. The defensive effort in the last 20 minutes was enormous and who should pull off the match-winning play of an outrageous turnover in the last minute as South Africa were ploughing their way towards what would have been an equalling try?
Who, but Ardie Savea of course. It was a stunning play by a stunning player on a night he competed a stunning achievement, but there were heroes everywhere, not just in the No 7 jersey.
Simon Parker, in just his second test, was colossal. He’s built like a South African and had no problems felling big bodies and letting them know he was there.
And not so far behind him was Tupou Vaa’i, who confirmed with his bruising 80 minutes that he has spent the last two years transforming from great athlete to great rugby player.
It wasn’t just that the All Blacks brought tenacity and fight, there was an obvious depth of research apparent in nearly all aspects of their performance – particularly the speed at which they reacted to shut down the Springboks when they tried to set up their famed driving maul.
There was both alertness and adeptness early in the first half when the Boks tried to pull off their trick play of an effective middle of the field lineout where they lifted Eben Etzebeth to take a lobbed pad.
Both Scott Barrett and Vaa’i read it ahead of time and immediately charged past the ball and came into melee from behind knowing that a maul had not yet been formed.
It was a big sign that the All Blacks had done their homework – a non-subliminal message that they were wise to what was in the visitor’s playbook and they weren’t about to let Eden Park be ransacked by a somewhat laboured, gimmick.
Just as telling was the way the All Blacks spooked the Springboks lineout – that they didn’t concede any easy takes, or, as they have done in the past, give up defending at number two throw all their eggs as it were into disrupting the flow of higher value possession to numbers four and six.
The pressure of having to be spot on with every throw got to the Boks who were unusually guilty of excessive choreography at times and the lineout became a little uncertain for both teams.
It’s a big moment in the context of head coach Scott Robertson’s tenure that his side managed to arm wrestle the Boks into submission – that he was able to outsmart the vaunted Rassie Erasmus.
The self-belief will grow, the confidence will build, and the All Blacks will feel that in the critical business of set-piece, breakdown and general collision work – the currency that international rugby trades on – they have the personnel and know-how in the bank.
They have to get better again under the high ball, look at their scrummaging and find the answers to why they conceded three penalties there, and maybe ask if box-kicking as much as they did should be considered a one-off and not something that is adopted wholesale.
But there is a feeling that this victory could be the real beginning of the Robertson era - the catalyst for his team to build their identity and start developing the variety of gameplans they will need to call upon to stay at number one in the world.
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.
