The All Blacks, under pressure to win well against Italy to keep their World Cup hopes alive and prove they deserve to be seen as viable contenders, delivered such a compelling performance in Lyon that the scrutiny on them may now shift to Ireland.
Certainly, that is a narrative that head coach Ian Foster would like to promote after this morning’s 96-17 demolition of the Azzurri and there is something in it.
His side will celebrate their 14-try mauling of an admittedly defensively naïve team before preparing to play world No.17 Uruguay at the same Parc Olympique Lyonnais stadium next Friday morning, whereas the Irish, the world No.1 nation on track to play the All Blacks in a quarter-final in Paris on October 15, must yet beat Scotland to qualify.
Ireland’s form would suggest they will do that fairly comfortably but such is the expectation building on a side which have never won a World Cup knockout match, how they handle such pressure will be fascinating and potentially telling a week out from one of the biggest Tests in their history.
There was a controlled fury about the way the All Blacks went about their work against Italy, and some of that may have been a reaction to being, perhaps not forgotten about after their recent losses to the Springboks and France, more under-appreciated as the contenders they still clearly are.
Foster wouldn’t admit it this morning but it would have hurt to hear stories, whether true or not, about Ireland preferring to play the All Blacks in a quarter-final rather than France.
"Not at all,” he said when asked whether he was annoyed at those suggestions.
“I have got no preference about who we play. Those questions early in the pool don't mean a lot as there are a lot of things that can still happen.
“We don't spend any time thinking about what might happen. I know that's a boring answer but that's the truth. What happens if Scotland go and play two great games and either Ireland or South Africa are not there?”
Scotland, beaten 18-3 by world champions South Africa in Marseille a fortnight ago, play Romania tomorrow morning and face Ireland a week later.
The Scots, ranked No.5 in the world, only one behind the All Blacks, bounced back from that defeat to the Boks with a good 45-17 win over Tonga and would cherish the opportunity to sink the World Cup dreams of their rivals from over the Irish Sea.
They pushed the All Blacks close in Edinburgh last year and have become a team that play with ambition and are extremely hard to break down.
"We'll do our job, take it one week at a time and find out who it is,” Foster added. You just have to look at the draw and to know that the quarter-finals are going to be huge. We just want to get there. Then we'll worry about who is there."
Asked whether the All Blacks were annoyed about apparently losing their “aura” after their recent setbacks which were followed by a 71-6 thrashing of Namibia, Foster said: "I don't know. I'll leave that to the people who write the headlines. We have just got to take the challenges in front of us. It felt strange sitting on the sidelines for the past two weeks while things were happening and it seemed the longer we weren't playing, the worse we got.
"In rugby you have to deal with the challenges that you've got. The trouble is if you win with a big scoreline people believe there is no value in it. The value has been massive for us as we put ourselves under pressure the last 10 days for that performance.
"We knew we had to [perform] and we didn't want to give Italy a chance. We respect them enough that we had to be in the house. What we've learned is that if we are really focused on preparation and we get it right and we figure out the challenge in front of us, then we can play good rugby.
"If you look at the South Africa-Ireland game, it was a different game of rugby. The ball was in play for 27 minutes throughout the whole game. It was a very stop-start game, very physical, very combative. You saw a different spectacle tonight and at some point the world has got to decide which game it would rather watch."
That was an interesting observation from Foster because while the world would probably rather watch teams playing with free-running, attacking tactics, the reality is that sort of game rarely wins the biggest World Cup games.
Should Ireland, who beat the Boks 13-8 in an absorbing but static match, get through to play the All Blacks in that quarter-final they probably haven’t got the ability to match their opponents' attacking style but they won’t give Foster’s men the time and space that Italy did and so it remains to be seen whether the All Blacks can themselves in such a high-stakes match.
If the Irish fall to Scotland, the All Blacks' likely quarter-final opponents will be South Africa.
Italy could yet play a major part in this tournament by upsetting France in their final pool game but the irony is this beating they suffered may be so demoralising that they can’t recover in time.
Foster said: "Maybe they started to think a little bit about they've got another bullet to fire next week against France. If they beat France, they knock France out of the competition if we beat Uruguay, so there are a few do-or-die games left."
Some twists may remain in this tournament after the All Blacks showed they aren’t the spent force some thought.
In summing up the match, Italy flanker Sebastian Negri said: “They hit us with a sledgehammer. There’s not much else to say.”
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