The All Blacks are likely to maintain their record of winning every pool match they have played at World Cups when they face Tonga in Newcastle tonight but what will we have learned about them?
In their opening match, against an Argentina side that now has so much more experience of facing the Southern Hemisphere big three and even got off the bottom of the Rugby Championship table this year, they were given a decent work-out, but since then it has been pretty much business as usual as they have picked off inferior opposition pretty much at will.
For by no means the first time the fear in New Zealand has to be that the world champions are heading into the knockout stages a bit ‘underdone’ as Kiwis tend to describe it.
The All Black aura almost works against them at World Cups because, for all that the demand that they win every match means there is an astonishing consistency to their results down the years – a 76 per cent winning record in all matches played setting them apart in elite sporting terms - it also leaves them vulnerable to teams that can draw inspiration for one off encounters.
That is particularly likely to happen come the key stages of these global competitions because they encounter opponents who are not only excited about the opportunity, but have generated hitherto unexpected confidence levels by winning their way through to those knockout encounters.
The defending champions and world number one side remain favourites, then, but it is conceivable that they will, in their next three matches, have to play the three teams – France, South Africa and Australia - that have given them most trouble down the years on successive weekends.
Even by All Black standards it will be tough to overcome three different sets of men trying to play the game of their lives, particularly when they have had it so easy to this point.
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