KEY POINTS:
Graham Henry claimed before the first test against France that New Zealand weren't as good as some people made out. I didn't see his tongue poking out of his cheek - maybe my eyesight is to blame. It must have been there.
One thing is for sure: he's going to have a hard job pulling that gag again after this ruthless demolition of the Welsh on their own patch. Come back Chris Rattue, is all forgiven?
Wales were blown away by the physical intensity, the sheer streetwise cunning and the pace of the All Blacks. No side in this part of the world can handle that intimidating combination - maybe only the South Africans at their best could do so.
Matching this All Black machine up front is non-negotiable. If you don't do that, you have no chance. Wales were lightweight by comparison, physically not as strong nor as powerful mentally. Add on that they couldn't live with the pace New Zealand played the game and made the key decisions and you have a perfectly understandable rationale for their 45-10 thrashing.
This All Black side is filled with multi-skilled players boasting myriad talents. Jerry Collins has added vision, touch and skill to the obvious power of his game. It's one hell of a cocktail and helped make him man of the match in Cardiff.
New Zealand can attack so decisively and damagingly because they secure second-phase ball at lightning pace. The ball is cleared in a flash whereas opponents' ball at the breakdown is invariably laboured and slow. Possession of that nature against so aggressive a defence as New Zealand's, is more a liability than anything else.
And when it comes to innovation behind the scrum, this side has the lot. Players make decisions on what is in front of them, not act according to some pre-formulated plan dreamt up on the training ground weeks earlier.
Witness Nick Evans' searing late break that handed Sitiveni Sivivatu his third try on a plate. The angles cut by the backs on and off the ball simply left the Welsh defence in tatters. The home rearguard was opened up as smoothly and efficiently as a modern housewife opening a tin of beans.
If any side wants to prise open the New Zealand defence, then it has to work an awful lot harder off the ball and show far greater innovation and invention than Wales ever suggested was part of their locker.
They ran angles that were far too simplistic and formulaic, lines that made the drift defence easy and kept things nice and secure from a New Zealand perspective. You must have runners coming not just at pace but at different angles to confuse the New Zealand rearguard. But you must also be able to match their physicality in the tackle, to offload and clear out at speed so as to maintain momentum.
Wales could do none of these in Cardiff, just as England and France had failed on the three previous weekends. It underlined that of all the rugby-playing nations, none in the Northern Hemisphere is within cooee of the All Blacks when it comes to pure physical intensity on the field. Which is where the South African threat lies.
But New Zealand might take one very useful lesson from this one-sided romp. If they encounter a referee as tough as England's Dave Pearson in a tight game at the World Cup and continue to deliberately slow down the opposition loose ball or go offside at the breakdown, it could one day come back to haunt them.
It didn't matter here that Richie McCaw and Andrew Hore went to the sin bin. But it might in a tight World Cup semifinal. That was the sole issue to provide food for thought for Henry's side in Wales.
* Peter Bills is a rugby writer for Independent News & Media in London
