KEY POINTS:
It's funny how New Zealanders watch in horror at the way the English football team is vilified in defeat and then deified in victory. That lack of perspective, that inability to focus the post-match analysis on the 90 minutes and not project it into something more, is the curse of the Poms.
It's driven by their desperation to win another football World Cup. They won once, in 1966, and occasionally they can go a full 10 minutes without reminding someone about the day Bobby Moore made a nation proud.
It's all so laughable from this side of the world, watching a country tear itself to pieces over their national team and their hideous insecurities and anxieties that come from having such a big monkey on their back.
But New Zealanders have no business feeling smug, sniggering at England and deflating the cheeks with a relief that signals, 'thank goodness we are not like them'.
They have no business, because New Zealanders react to an All Black defeat in the same insular, blame-hunting way as the English.
New Zealand once won a Rugby World Cup, in 1987, and just like the English, are tortured by their hunger for a repeat success.
An All Black loss, it seems, can never just be that. It has to mean something more. It has to be over analysed to the point where the same people who only the week before were basking in the glow of the team's new found mental resolve are now wondering whether Richie McCaw has got what it takes to cut it as skipper.
It was former Wallaby coach Eddie Jones who started this nonsense. He questioned on the Monday after the 20-15 defeat in Melbourne whether McCaw has any impact with referees. He suggested the All Black openside has a reputation for breaking the rules and, because of that, he doesn't command respect with officials.
Incredibly, there were plenty of people in New Zealand who took Jones seriously. Incredible because Jones has suffered the most alarming fall from grace. He lost eight out of nine tests in 2005 and was ushered out of office with embarrassing haste before he could do any more damage.
Jones is the man who put the Wallabies scrummaging back to remedial level and, for an encore, he went to the Reds this season and rooted them firmly to the bottom of the Super 14 ladder, finishing their campaign with a 92-3 loss in Pretoria.
Jones once knew his onions but, really, when he has a dig at the All Blacks, everyone should politely laugh, feel some pity for a man who just can't handle the fact he is no longer on rugby's A-list and get back to the gardening or ironing or something more constructive than wondering whether Eddie has a point.
For anyone who just can't move on, dig out the history books. Sean Fitzpatrick had a reputation for breaking the rules. Martin Johnson had a reputation for breaking the rules.
Referees didn't just respect these men, they were in awe - almost too scared to blow for infringements for fear of upsetting them.
Eddie's best ignored, as are those who have wondered whether McCaw is a fair-weather captain - a good leader when the team is playing well but someone who goes missing, or turns mute, when the heat is on.
Last year in Brisbane, the All Blacks were really under pressure. They were 13-9 ahead with 20 minutes to go and the Wallabies were firing. McCaw played the most extraordinary 80 minutes. It was so good, coach Graham Henry wondered whether it was possible to ever play better.
The All Black skipper led from the front and made possibly the best try-saving tackle of the modern era. His leadership under pressure was assured and effective, as it was in this year's opening Tri Nations game in Durban.
The All Blacks were 21-12 down with 15 minutes to go and needed inspiration. The troops needed to see someone leading from the front.
It was McCaw who drove the ball over the line to put the All Blacks back in business and it was McCaw who urged his team to stick with the expansive football that eventually saw the All Blacks triumph.
But just as the Poms can so easily forget the heroics of David Beckham, Kiwis, too, do a nice line in revisionism. One defeat is it all takes for McCaw to go from a national treasure to a national emergency.
That is just crazy and makes a mockery of New Zealand's self-proclamation as the spiritual home of rugby.
A nation so immersed in the game should be able to see that defeat in Melbourne has not provided a licence to start fretting.
The coaches, players and McCaw all made mistakes. With hindsight, the selectors probably should have kept Mils Muliaina at centre and put Nick Evans at fullback.
Rodney So'oialo should have caught a simple pass and put Rico Gear away to make it 22-6 at halftime and McCaw missed two tackles in the build-up to the Australian tries.
And, as the skipper readily admitted immediately after the game, he should have instructed Dan Carter to slow things down and look for field position in the second half.
He's right, he should have. The fact he didn't doesn't make him a bad captain. It means he made a mistake.
But it also has to be appreciated that the days of their being just one leader on the pitch are long gone. Carter is the best first five in the world. He's played almost 40 tests and knows what he's doing.
So too does Aaron Mauger and McCaw would have been relying on those two and the All Black outside backs to determine for themselves that there was space behind the Wallabies and that they were coming under pressure from the rush defence.
It was a bad night. No one came out looking good but the one thing this All Black side deserves is respect. In four seasons they have lost just five games.
They lost in Cape Town in 2005 and a week later, came from behind to win in Sydney, showing they had learned from most of the mistakes they had made in South Africa.
In 2006, they lost in Rustenburg, regrouped and played shock and awe rugby that blew away the best Europe could muster.
Leave panic to the Poms. That's their bag. Leave them to torment themselves into contorted knots on the back of every game their football team plays.
The All Blacks lost in Melbourne. They were hampered by injuries. They didn't play well and the Wallabies did, or at least they did when it mattered.
That's it. Analysis over. Turn off Eddie and go back to the ironing.
