This is now five losses in the last six games, the latest a 26-10 defeat. This is now the worst run in the All Blacks professional history and there was not a shred of evidence in Mbombela that it will stop. This is the All Blacks' fate if they do nothing.
Forget the scoreboard as it maybe only tells half the story. It only confirms South Africa's superiority and domination, but it doesn't reveal that the All Blacks, not once in 80 minutes, looked like being a serious contender to win the game.
They didn't even look like a serious contender to score a try and it was as if they were a balloon that South Africa sat upon, slowly adding more weight with the certainty that it was going to pop.
And that's why this All Blacks side is broken – they don't play a gallant and heroic role in defeat. There is no swashbuckling defiance and a sense that they could soon be on the other side of these mounting losses.
Instead, they seem to be resigned to their fate from the kick-off and from the earliest exchanges in Mbombela – particularly after the first scrum yielded the Springboks a free kick and the second a penalty – it instantly became a case of wondering just how big the margin of defeat was going to be.
After 10 minutes, the best New Zealanders could hope for was a valiant effort in clinging on. Which they got.
Hanging in there has become the All Blacks thing and they are maybe the best side in the world right now at doggedly sticking their finger in the dyke and holding the inevitable tide for a surprisingly long time.
And that's because they have become resident dwellers of a no man's land where they don't manage to put much, if any, pressure on their opponents and yet nor do they play so catastrophically as to suggest a collapse is in the offing.
They just seem to assume they are going to die a slow death and they throw themselves about with as much passion and energy as they have on defence until the inevitable defeat comes.
For the fourth straight game they conceded an early try and for the third time, they were barely sighted inside the opposition half in the first 40 minutes.
It wasn't until Richie Mo'unga kicked a penalty to touch in the 52nd minute that the All Blacks had an attack inside South Africa's 22.
And here lies the rub with this All Blacks team, they have neither the patience nor the ability at the moment to be a possession team.
Just like in Dunedin and Wellington – the third quarter excepted – they barely had the ball in Mbombela and mostly that was because they were hampered by not being able to go more than three phases without conceding a turnover.
It's easy enough for ball carriers to be isolated after seven phases-plus, but to be picked off so easily after two or three as Malcolm Marx so often managed suggests a systemic failing or a chronic confusion about basic strategy.
These All Blacks have a hunter's mentality of wanting to play off mistakes, of forcing turnovers and counter attacking against broken defences.
It's what they have done and who they have been for the last decade or so but to play like that, the pass and catch has to be razor sharp, the awareness high and the transition from defensive mindset to attacking lightning quick.
And here lies yet another rub with this All Blacks team, the skill execution has eroded from the peak it was once at in the golden age between 2010 and 2016.
Offering so little and playing with so many inaccuracies is not how All Blacks side are supposed to be.
The story needs a rewrite and the introduction of new character to freshen a plot that has become decidedly predictable.
