It was Blackrock's biggest crowd of the season, of the year, of the decade. Pity, mused club president Frank Cullen, they weren't here to see the club's first team perform. Bigger sob was that they'd no one on the gate.

Stradbrook yesterday was defrocked of its colours. But Frank grinned from his grassy vantage point, lording over a rugby practice that had evolved into a spectacle.

The blue and white club trim around the ground had been replaced with swathes of black and white. The Blackrock logo was annexed and a silver feather crowned the posts. Adidas, the team sponsors, had infiltrated the sides of the in-field. The All Black behemoth arrived and worked its charm on the crowd.

The caravans, the merchandise, the slick public relations people, the sponsors and, most of all, the fans arrived in droves.

An estimated 3,000 spectators, perhaps more, lined the perimeter of the pitch and sat up in the stand, as one of the biggest world brands arrived for a public training session in the Dublin suburb. In truth it was shameless and extraordinary PR. The people came to watch it for an hour, leave and say they had been there.

The team was one hour late but the crowd didn't blink. In young memories it will become "the day I waited for the All Blacks". To bide time officials on point duty handed out free magazines - special UK tour editions of NZ Rugby.

They organised a kicking competition for the kids, who laced the ball down the pitch in front of the biggest crowd they will ever perform, a signed All Black shirt for the winner.

They told the throngs how to get the autographs and when and where the players would be available to scribble their names. Even anxiety was taken out of the equation.

It was a marketing coup, a lesson in the art of dealing with the public, of giving them what they want. The All Blacks yesterday planted seeds that will grow. We are not used to this. We expect friction and people telling us that things can't be done. In entertainment and glad-handing terms it was a mini peak before the Everest of Lansdowne Road on Saturday.

Most had come to see Jonah Lomu stretch his legs. A railed-off corridor from the changing-rooms to the pitch, three people deep, led to where the former English prince, Jerry Guscott stood with a camera crew.

Lomu emerged and there was a collective shriek. The bob of hair on top of his head; the enormous flanks of thigh muscle, the terrifying velocity and momentum.

Behind him trotted Tana Umaga, the braided, immense centre voted New Zealand player of the year in 2000. And off they galloped with the rest of the oversized herd into a light session of charging bodies and tackle bags.

"Jaysus lads this is what we'll be doing in school training for the next two years," groaned a fan. "Macker should get a hair cut like that, it might make him run faster," he gurgled.

This is what the All Blacks are used to, what they now expect. In New Zealand the team once attracted a crowd of 7,500 to watch one of their sessions. They never get less than 500. Nothing has been left to chance. This is the zone of Manchester United, Brazil and Michael Jordan. An uber team.

"No the attention doesn't bother me," says Lomu afterwards. "We always seem to attract a large crowd to our practice wherever we go."

A hundred out-stretched arms reach over the barriers to the players, most thinner than any one All Black leg. They leave as they arrived, running late, unperturbed, just one reedy voice above the lot -"You'll never beat the Oirish."