The All Blacks' team spirit is evident at the captain's run yesterday. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Third test match fitting finale to a Lions tour that stuttered before sparking.
Look back to last week and ask yourself whether the All Blacks or Lions have more improvement in them.
Results breed confidence. Context offers insight.
One team lost a man after 25 minutes and, despite completely overhauling their approach from anything resembling the way they wanted to play, came very close to sealing the series.
The other needed all of 77 minutes to convert their clear and obvious advantage. For a very long time, this same team did everything they could to blow it with dumb or, perhaps, cynical infringing.
Rugby is a game of time and space; of punch and counter punch. Quality sides survive yellow cards. Great sides, as the All Blacks proved in the Ellis Park epic of 2013, can even survive two.
But with two teams of this quality it is inconceivable one could hold off the other for 45 minutes with one less player. The die was all but cast by one shoulder charge. Sure the All Blacks made mistakes in Wellington with their late drivers failing to close the game out. But that they almost emerged from the bottomless pit speaks to the heart of tonight's decider.
Those mistakes won't be repeated.
Just as in the Eden Park opener, the onus will be put squarely on the All Blacks' pack to win them this series. With such an inexperienced backline - Ben Smith, Ryan Crotty, Sonny Bill Williams and Dane Coles (pretty much a back) all absent - the pack simply has to front.
Like all playmakers, Beauden Barrett thrives best on the front foot.
Get off the line and regularly hit Mako Vunipola and Tadhg Furlong and the job will be half done. Sounds like a job for Brodie Retallick if ever there was one.
All going well Jerome Kaino won't be pulled early, and he was one of the All Blacks' best in the first test. His power in the carry and on defence, combined with Sam Cane and Kieran Read, set the tone.
This time, it just happens to be the captain's century stand.
Twin breakdown bandits Sean O'Brien and Sam Warburton won't allow the All Blacks anywhere near the same freedom they did in the first test. But Steve Hansen's cleaners will come breathing fire and fury; much more urgent and aggressive than they were in the capital. Harnessing anger from that defeat, this area will be more ferocious than any other.
That Hansen has treated this week much like any other should calm nerves. He knows the importance of the Lions. They were, after all, the first test he witnessed as a 12-year-old in the Carisbrook stands alongside father, Des. The All Blacks lost that match 9-3 but have dropped few under his charge.
This is a man who has presided over a 90 per cent winning record (64 wins, 5 losses, and 2 draws since 2012) and, thus, should have earned some trust.
As much as anything else this week is a test of depth. Once again Hansen has been bold by handing maiden test starts to rookie Hurricanes fullback Jordie Barrett and second five-eighth Ngani Laumape. But with Rieko Ioane (illness) and Waisake Naholo (head knock) ruled out, he had few options.
The All Blacks' unbeaten record stretching back to 1994 at Eden Park suggests otherwise but nothing is ever a given.
The Lions are dangerous if for no other reason than they really have nothing to lose. This is the end of their season; no tomorrow an empowering prospect. After six weeks, nine matches, rest in Queenstown and with an unchanged team from last week, they have no excuses not to gel.
They stand on the brink of the impossible. Such a description certainly seemed apt after their turgid start in Whangarei at the start of June. One way or the other, their "suicidal" mission is almost complete.
In the classy Conor Murray, Jonathan Sexton and Owen Farrell the Lions have three experienced controllers to direct their game, but probably not the consistent creativity or flair to match the All Blacks. Like boxing, it is the offload or quick tap you don't see coming that hurts the most.
Injuries have weakened the All Blacks' bench, long a strength of this team.
The 12-year wait has delivered New Zealanders and the travelling red army a fitting finale. Embrace it. The All Blacks will. Just as many times previously, expect them to rise for this.