So all in all not a bad sporting weekend for the men from the land of the long white cloud. Perhaps New Zealand's cricketers, transformed Clark Kent - like between Tests, took inspiration from watching the All Blacks, the country's real super-heroes, over breakfast on Saturday morning.
It is difficult to believe that a year ago the All Blacks were in the middle of their worst run of form since 1949 and held in the same sort of esteem in New Zealand as England's cricketers in their country. Eden Park was truly Eden for followers of the game in the earth's most rugby-mad nation.
New Zealand are favourites for the Tri-Nations and now the World Cup after a crushing exhibition in Auckland of forward power underpinned by a flawless display of place-kicking from their fly-half Andrew Mehrtens. Even Grant Fox in his metronomic pomp never kicked 10 out of 10 in an All Black shirt. Mehrtens now holds a world record jointly with Japan's Keiji Hirose, who also kicked nine penalties out of nine against Tonga last month.
The All Blacks are at the end of the month in which they have clocked up a half-century of points against France, condemned the Springboks to the worst defeat in their history and have now outplayed the Wallabies. Australia could still win the tournament with a return match in Sydney at the end of next month but on this evidence they do not have a tight five to wrest enough possession.
Australia may have out-scored the All Blacks by two tries to one, when after the break George Gregan plundered an opportunist score and Dan Herbert sliced open the defence with a swerving run, but the Wallabies were outgunned and only resolute defence kept the score to within reasonable bounds.
"Our discipline was terrible. We made too many mistakes and just couldn't get the ball in the first 40 minutes. The only good thing about our game was our defence, said David Wilson, the captain of Australia, whose own 10-match winning run came to a shuddering halt.
The All Blacks have unearthed a lock in Norm Maxwell, who may look rangy compared to the likes of Martin Johnson but England's captain will have a mammoth job containing him at Twickenham on October 9. Josh Kronfeld was back to his scavenging best at open-side, hands like flypaper continually helping recycle ball to his backline and Kees Meeuws, the Otago tight-head, constantly blasted openings with his powerful runs.
The Wallabies, who oddly chose the leaden-footed Tiaan Strauss at No 8, were run off their feet in an opening onslaught by the All Blacks. It was a barrage from which the Australians never recovered. Oddly it only produced one rather fluky try. After 10 minutes the Wallabies won their own scrum close to the line but when Gregan threw the ball back to Joe Roff, the wing, hands still cold, dropped the pass and Justin Marshall burrowed between Roff and Matt Burke for a soft score.
As a mistake it ranked with David Campese attempting to run the ball from his line against the 1989 Lions in Sydney and flinging a loose pass to Greg Martin for Ieuan Evans to score a try that won a Test series. Roff looked devastated and so did the Wallabies when they were constantly penalised by Derek Bevan for killing the ball and those resulting Mehrtens kicks soared goalwards into the black night sky.
Scorers: New Zealand: Try: Marshall. Conversion: Mehrtens. Penalties: Mehrtens 9. Australia: Tries: Gregan, Herbert. Conversion: Burke. Penalty: Burke.
NEW ZEALAND: Wilson; Cullen, Ieremia, Gibson, Umaga (Lomu, 64min); Mehtrens (Brown, 74), Marshall; Hoeft (Feek, 59), Oliver, Meeuws, Maxwell, Brooke (Willis, 70), Mika (Blowers, 75), Kronfeld, Randell (capt).
AUSTRALIA: Burke; Tune, Herbert, Grey, Roff; Horan, Gregan; Noriega, Paul, Panaho (Crowley, 68), Welborn, Giffin, Cockbain, Wilson (capt), Strauss (Kefu, h-t).
Referee: D Bevan (Wales).
