First, the very good news: the All Blacks broke out of their malaise by taking out their hurt against Argentina in a manner reminiscent of teams of the recent past – by scoring seven tries to nil in a performance high on ambition and accuracy.
Some more good news: this 53-3 bonus point thrashing of the Pumas at Waikato Stadium was the perfect way to respond to the previous weekend’s historic flop in Christchurch.
And it put them atop the tightest ever Rugby Championship by one competition point. After this humiliation in Hamilton on Saturday night, the Springboks beat the Wallabies in Sydney (the first time they’ve done so in Australia in nine years), which means each team has now won two and lost two.
And they did it with an almost complete performance: controlled aggression and defensive and set piece excellence up front combined with the renowned running threats of Rieko Ioane, Caleb Clarke, Jordie Barrett et al released by a composed Richie Mo’unga. There was variation and intelligence. There were line breaks and offloads. There were answers to many questions.
And yet, so poor were the Pumas in the wet conditions that some questions will remain until the All Blacks play the Wallabies in Melbourne on September 15 (and again at Eden Park nine days later). Namely, is this a corner turned in Ian Foster’s quest for consistency, or merely another Ellis Park-style aberration?
Read more: What a response! Under-pressure All Blacks perfect in taming Pumas
We’ll find out soon enough but there can be few complaints about how the All Blacks responded to the enormous pressure they were under, and to do so by playing with such freedom in the difficult weather conditions was truly impressive.
“Just the ambition,” Foster replied when asked what he most liked about the victory, only his team’s third in nine Tests. “I don’t think we let the conditions to blind us to taking space when it was on and we had the confidence to do it. It wasn’t picture perfect early on … but I love that mindset when this team plays like that.
“This championship is important for us, and we put ourselves in a bit of a hole last week. We had to respond and do what we did and to walk away with a bonus point and a big points differential in a tight competition, at least it keeps us in the race.
“We’ve got two to go and we’ll have to have two good performances to come away with this championship.”
The All Blacks won the start, and in referee Nic Berry they had an official they could trust at the breakdown which created a virtuous circle. They strung phases together, stressed the Argentine defence, got rewards and tired the visitors – which meant they could string more phases together and so on.
As Foster said: “We got reward for a lot of the ball carries and some of the runs that we were making.
“The interpretation of the breakdown was very different from last week and that gave us a lot of confidence to play a little bit more.”
Skipper Sam Cane was occasionally devastating on defence and played more of an attacking role in the second half before he was replaced by Dalton Papali’i with 16 minutes remaining.
This was a significant Test for a leader under huge pressure who showed a greater range of his ability.
“We were up three converted tries early in the first half and for us to keep that on for the full 80 - [to show] that ruthless, complete mindset - that was pleasing,” Cane said.
“We’d be pretty quick to put our hand up and say we haven’t been proud of the performances we’ve put out at home. We appreciate the support we receive, but you can’t beat putting on one in front of a crowd who use their hard-earned cash to come and support us.”
What did this Test tell us? It showed the All Blacks can be devastating on attack. That Ioane is one of the most electrifying running talents in the world when in full flight. That Ardie Savea remains one of the best players going around - (a "beast" is how Cane described him). That hooker Samisoni Taukei'aho is becoming world class. That Mo’unga can be a creative and perceptive general.
Video: Big scuffle breaks out after try in Boks’ win over Wallabies
And yet, we knew most of that already.
The true challenge, which the All Blacks will know, is how do they replicate this against teams that defend with more line speed, don’t want to concede a centimetre at the breakdown and kick with far more intelligence and pressure. In other words, how do they do it consistently against nations such as South Africa, France and Ireland?
“We’ve worked hard to get our game where we want it to be,” Foster said. “It hasn’t happened at the speed we’d like… but we saw signs of that tonight.
“There’s no doubt this team has felt a whole lot of different pressure, we’ve had massive support from our fans behind the scenes and it’s been amazing. I’m proud of the way the guys have hung in there and haven’t got tight under the pressure – particularly this man next to me (Cane).”
Pumas coach Michael Cheika said: “Obviously New Zealand played well and we were below par and the combination of those things didn’t work out well for us. We lost the battle, we lost the physicality, pure and simple.”
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