Peter Bills: All Blacks' searing push torches error-ridden Wallabies

Coach Graham Henry's revitalised approach proved to be key to the game's result. Photo / Getty Images

Final Tri-Nations standings

The All Blacks looked as though they had broken down and rebuilt their whole game, as they overwhelmed the Wallabies.

This was a sweeping performance in the old style of New Zealand rugby, overwhelmingly powerful up front especially at the breakdown and intent on securing rapidly recycled ball, the key for their different attacking strategy behind the scrum.

The Australians were torched by the combinations in a test match of superb entertainment.

As Richie McCaw said, rugby is a pretty simple game when possession is retained and sustained pressure, shorn of mistakes, is applied to the opposition. Few sides can hope to survive so exhaustive a period of international rugby without the ball.

But perhaps New Zealand should not yet believe their lineout has been completely fixed. It sure helps if the opposition decides not to contest the throw, giving an armchair ride to every All Black lineout jumper. The alarm bells must have clattered in Steve Hansen's head when Andrew Hore's first throw of the game went straight over the top of everyone and landed in space at the back. Fortunately, Richie McCaw was, as so often, in the right place at the right time, to seize the loose ball.

But Graham Henry's revitalised approach was the key to the game. Gone was so much of the aimless, downfield kicking that had dominated too many games in this Tri-Nations season. Abandoned, too, was the wildly ambitious, slightly desperate attacking strategy of running the ball from deep without the fundamental requirement of supremacy up front, especially at the breakdowns, to back it up.

Attacking from your own 22 is often the most propitious position on the field, but the harum-scarum tactics used in Durban against the highly structured Springboks were never likely to succeed given the plethora of mistakes that littered the All Blacks' game at that time allied to the predatory instincts of the Boks breakaways.

Without them in Wellington, New Zealand could look to find space to attack even from deep. They did it well and with increasing conviction, too, the handling errors greatly reduced.

It was another cruel return to his native land for Australian coach Robbie Deans whose side was out-muscled up front, especially at the breakdown.

The Wallabies never began to match the intensity of the All Blacks.

Watching this All Black pack pouring forward, powering over the tackled player at the breakdown to force turnovers, was a reminder of All Black rugby of yesteryear. No wonder the Wallabies made so many mistakes, giving away possession both through turnovers and penalties. The pressure they were under became searingly hot. They paid the price for the modern-day lunacy of keeping props, locks and a hooker somewhere out in the back line. The All Blacks got superior numbers to the breakdown and gained inevitable domination.

Henry was a clear winner in the coaching contest over Deans.

New Zealand ran hard and straight in possession, sucking in defenders and forcing the Wallabies to make more than 100 tackles. The pressure had to tell and two tries by the All Blacks in the last five minutes confirmed the inevitable.

* Peter Bills is a rugby writer for Independent News & Media in London.