KEY POINTS:
New Zealand may have done a whole lot more than win a Tri-Nations/Bledisloe Cup match on Saturday night. They just might have shown the whole Northern Hemisphere that the new ELVs are not the devil personified, as everyone north of the Equator seems to think.
To win by
reverting to a structured game based on kicking for position and shrewd tactical acumen was one thing. At times at Eden Park on Saturday night, the mind went back to 1983 when Dave Loveridge was halfback and kicked the British Lions to distraction with shrewd prods into the visitors' 22.
Jimmy Cowan may be no Loveridge but he brought such a tactical awareness and simplicity born of structure and tradition to the New Zealand game that he must have been greeted like the returning hero, afterwards.
Suddenly, someone other than Daniel Carter was making decisions in the No's 8, 9 and 10 axis. It helped no end that Rodney So'oialo was restored to the No 8 position. He looked everything he hadn't been as a flanker: dynamic, assured, confident in his role and dangerous.
But the message that came out of this match was that, whatever the new laws, you can still play a traditional, structured game and triumph. New Zealand won this Test by going back to basics; doing the simple things effectively, dominating the lineouts, the scrums and the breakdowns. They were so much more effective and efficient than the Australians.
Oh, and there was one other quality that tilted the match New Zealand's way: Old-fashioned pride in the jersey - that commodity Colin Meads had spoken about in the week. The burning desire to see off any opponent, to tackle, cover, run and attack until it hurts. And then do a bit more ...
In Sydney, New Zealand had resembled headless chickens. Here, they were organised, cohesive and focused on the basics.
The fact that the All Blacks were allowed to scrum - and the Australians were not allowed to collapse scrums at will - made a significant difference. The Wallabies' backrow was unable to break early, to roam free and do damage. Instead, Richie McCaw was first at most breakdowns and he laid the foundations for his team's victory.
Sometimes, you just have to acknowledge a supreme individual performance, so fulsome a display that others have simply been unable to match it. Given that he hadn't played a match for weeks, McCaw's display at Eden Park was outstanding. The world should acknowledge his excellence but New Zealand should fear his absence. Without him, the All Blacks look half the side.
But now comes the acid test. Can these All Blacks follow up such a wonderfully convincing performance with a display of similar conviction in Cape Town on Saturday week? Can they enter the Springbok's cage and take him by the throat, just as they did the Wallaby? The danger of reverting to a traditional game is that the South Africans, always happiest when confronted with familiarity and a bruising physical contest, will adapt better to those structures. They suit them best. So how do the All Blacks get past them in Cape Town?
It seems to me that international rugby these days is a moveable feast, a perennial test of intellectual rugby brains. Palpably, Graham Henry and his colleagues got it as wrong in Sydney as they got it right in Auckland. But what will they devise for Cape Town?
Another day, another challenge ...
* Peter Bills is a rugby writer for Independent News & Media in London.
