It was a win - but the All Blacks came up short

Richie McCaw

All Blacks 34 Australia 24

As Kiwis we demand results; ungainly victories are always much more palatable than pretty defeats.

Crowds filing out of Eden Park on Saturday night were wrestling with that issue after watching the All Blacks take out the Tri-Nations title. The rugby had not been polished but the silverware was.

The win against the Wallabies placed the Tri-Nations trophy alongside the Bledisloe Cup and Lions series booty, with the players now recuperating before the Grand Slam tour.

Job done, so initially it had to be well done to the All Blacks.

However, we also like to analyse; dissect the performance. The conclusion: the All Blacks came up short in their final domestic test.

After a rollicking start, a boisterous beginning from the pack, they faded, they fell into that dark mental hole which has enveloped them in most games.

"I wish I knew why," flanker Richie McCaw said.

"We talked about it at halftime. We had a lapse last week [against the Boks] and we did not want to do it again. There will always be ebbs and flows in games but we have to make sure it does not happen so much."

The All Blacks looked weary but the Wallabies have played one more test than them this year. The mid-match snooze was a mystery for McCaw and others but, at the end of the domestic campaign, they could ignore it and dwell on their success.

It was time to celebrate and recuperate before a return to the NPC, then the late-October expedition to Europe.

Coach Graham Henry and his staff were only going to applaud the win against the Wallabies. They were not about to pick holes in the performance or denigrate a season where they had accumulated three trophies.

Captain Tana Umaga can talk about a special team, but it is only a work in progress. Undoubtedly there is a special bond among the players but they are some way short still of being an exceptional side.

More crucially, they are several players short of being a distinguished team. When they have Daniel Carter, Byron Kelleher, Jerry Collins and, perhaps, Anton Oliver, they are a much more complete unit.

Of all of them, Carter is the most striking absentee, someone with the x-factor that would have raised the level of performance.

Since their startling 45-6 win against France late last year, the All Blacks have mixed moments of brilliance with periods of casual sluggishness.

On Saturday, the tight five started with a serious ferocity, cleaning out rucks, banging into tackles and dominating the scrum and lineout. In times like that you think this is it. Then they disappear.

All you can say is thank heavens for the lead before the halftime switch of identity.

Without McCaw, the All Blacks would be under more heat. He does the work of several men, as borne out by post-match statistics.

From the sensible start - including Ali Williams' crossfield punt for Doug Howlett's first try - the score was 20-0 in the All Blacks' favour after 28 minutes.

Then the concentration and defence fell away alarmingly for Mark Gerrard to set up one try and score another with angled runs close to the tail of the lineout. Tack on Lote Tuqiri's chargedown try from Leon MacDonald's clearing kick and the sirens were on full All Black alert.

The next crucial stage was a substitute's cameo.

Replacement Wallaby prop Matt Dunning laid claim to his Dumb and Dunning headline history, with three penalty concessions, errors which substitute five-eighths Luke McAlister converted.

It was a clinical response from McAlister, who brought more control to his game than he did in his debut on the same ground against the Lions in the third test.

Both sides got another try, Howlett gaining his hat-trick and rookie Wallaby Lloyd Johannson scoring after superb lead-up work from Mat Rogers and George Smith.

After a night to celebrate and ponder the match, All Black coach Henry captured more of the perspective.

The results had been great, just one defeat out of eight, and the panel would have taken those outcomes at the start of the year while player development had some way to travel.

"Like yesterday," said Henry.

"The setpiece was excellent, scrum was superb, lineout was very sound, the defence was questionable - and I will have a talk to the defence coach [Henry] later on and tell him what I think, give him a couple of uppercuts - and we did not have enough patience on attack.

"So there are always things we can work on, they vary from week to week and if we get all of those things right at one time someone is going to be in for it, I think."