KEY POINTS:
If the All Blacks can meet their great expectations, the rugby World Cup final will be the 50th and final test in charge for coach Graham Henry.
No announcement has been made but all the signs point to the 61-year-old coaching maestro exiting next month, regardless of the outcome for his team in France.
If New Zealand don't reach the final, it will represent a gigantic anticlimax to a highly successful, if somewhat contentious, four-year reign for Henry.
By contrast, victory in Paris on October 21 (NZ time) would catapult his tenure to be rated among the very best by any coach in the sport's history.
A bold assertion but Henry can already reflect on a test record of 38 scalps from 43 tests - astounding figures considering professional rugby was supposed to level the playing field among the world's elite nations.
Retention of the Bledisloe Cup, three out of four Tri-Nations crowns, a smashing of the Lions and a northern hemisphere Grand Slam.
Henry has somehow attained these notches to the belt while operating from a manual designed for World Cup success, a manual that rugby traditionalists would love nothing more than to shred.
Results speak more loudly than Henry ever could in mounting a defence of his methods.
The All Blacks are unbeaten at home and against northern hemisphere opponents, with three losses in South Africa and two in Australia the only blots to the copybook.
But for many, Henry's rotation selection policy - taking the method several steps further than predecessor John Mitchell - has cheapened the heritage of the black jersey and impacted on the players' ability to gel.
Henry has been at pains to point out that lack of depth has been a weakness of the failed World Cup campaigns since 1987.
Many of his selection experiments have been placed in the didn't work basket but others, such as backline bolters Isaia Toeava and Brendon Leonard, could well set the World Cup alight.
Another contentious tactic this year was Henry's decree that his 22 leading players be placed on a conditioning programme through the first half of the Super 14.
The move not only devalued that competition considerably but critics believe New Zealand's mixed test efforts this year are a direct flow-on from the lack of rugby for the top players in 2007.
Since the Tri-Nations, most of them have been wrapped once again in cotton wool.
Henry's decision to keep his stars off the playing field to such a major extent will either be lauded or lampooned depending on how his team perform in October, when the World Cup knockout phase begins.
The All Blacks will be unchallenged through pool play, where the expansive style Henry has encouraged should be uncorked.
Of real interest will be whether Henry asks his players to remain free spirits from the quarterfinal onwards or whether pragmatism - the hallmark of most of the five previous World Cup winners - takes over.
"We try to play to our strengths and the way the guys enjoy playing," Henry says.
"If we played a game that was drive, kick the ball in the air, chase it, drop goals, I think we'd be a very poor side because it just wouldn't stimulate the guys."
Henry's wealth of experience and more worldly outlook than Mitchell were behind his appointment in 2004.
Having tasted multiple successes with Auckland and the Blues in the 1990s before a steep learning curve as coach of Wales and the Lions, Henry knew the importance of quality support around him.
He quickly recruited Steve Hansen and Wayne Smith as assistants and the trio set about creating a leadership group to aid in the empowerment of players as better, more responsible people.
This, Henry insists, is a key to avoiding the calamities that have befallen the All Blacks when the spotlight has been turned on them at recent World Cups.
Sometimes irascible but blessed with a dry wit, he will be a loss to international rugby.
Known by his friends as Ted and as The Great Redeemer when things were going well in Wales, a new nickname will need to be dreamed up if Henry becomes the man to end 20 years of World Cup heartbreak.
- NZPA
