By CHRIS RATTUE
It was hardly champagne rugby and the bubbly wasn't flowing all over the English dressing room either.
It's a hard-nosed business, rugby these days, even after you create a major milestone in a test match.
Players don't get much time on the field, and they don't get much off it to celebrate.
England's players had consigned Saturday night's victory to their own little history books even before the large pack of scribes had a chance to get the story into daily newspapers around the world.
A few English players turned up at the cricket academy on the ground floor of the Westpac Stadium for interviews shortly after coaches Clive Woodward, Andy Robinson and Phil Larder had done their stuff on the podium.
The key statistic during this post-mortem stage: not one broad beaming smile among them. Lots of inner glow maybe, but no bright lights.
"Every game is huge," announced English hooker Steve Thompson, who is huge.
This was Thompson's 40th game of the season, but he was still happy to look ahead to No 41, the test against Australia in Melbourne, rather than dwell on England's second test victory in this country.
Thompson said: "Things have changed quite a lot ... some people say it's a shame, not socialising with the other teams and that. But you're not in this job long and you've got to make the most of it. There was a bit of celebrating, but everyone is just so tired.
"You can see the smiles on everyone's faces, put it that way, but on the other hand there are really exhausted bodies ... bruises, quite a few stitches.
"Jono [skipper Martin Johnson] said to us in the dressing room that this is the hardest place in the world to win, and we have made history.
"You've got to savour that, but you've got to get straight back into the job for the next week.
"Perhaps in a few years' time you sit back and actually see what you've achieved."
Thompson, at 24 the whipper-snapper in the pack, added: "It's an absolute honour to play with 'Dad's Army'."
And he described Johnson as the toughest bloke he had ever encountered in rugby.
"He's not the sort of fellow who says much - what he says you listen to," Thompson said.
"To me he grows during the week and becomes this mammoth of a man. Mentally, he's the hardest.
"He's everywhere in the game, smashing it up, always there, always in the thick of it."
Thompson believed early dominance enabled a six-man English scrum to defend their line against the All Blacks' eight after the sinbinning of Neil Back and Lawrence Dallaglio.
"Overall we had been on top. We had been pushing them around, popping them up and things like that. We knew we could do it. It's self-belief.
"Today we really attacked them and it went our way. We did put pressure on them and we kept going at every single scrum. It paid off when we were down to six men."
The 58-test flanker Richard Hill was in a similar celebratory mood.
"Our defence was awesome, but I don't think we played our best rugby by any means," Hill said.
"In terms of our attacking play, there's plenty to work on ... to work players into better positions.
"Anyone who thinks we can just rest on the back of this victory will probably be crying next weekend."
So what about the wild dressing room celebrations, the champagne-soaked hair and gear, the tears of victory?
"Far from it," Hill replied.
"It's a huge honour, we're aware that it's a good victory.
"We're aware of the history, but history is something you look back on. It's something that means a lot more to you years down the line.
"We're only the second England team to have achieved this in New Zealand.
"It's a significant win, we're proud of it - but when you look back on your career you have more of an understanding of the importance of some of the games."
On the six-man scrum heroics, Hill said: "It was a critical part of the game, once my back-row buddies had decided to desert me.
"It wasn't as if we conceded the shoulder [in the scrums]. We certainly had parity within those scrums and were trying to even assert a moderate amount of pressure."
Hill did not believe the match would give England any psychological edge at the World Cup.
Maybe the strongest warning for the future came from fullback Josh Lewsey.
"Playing as badly as we did, we still beat arguably the best team in the world in their back garden," said Lewsey, the 26-year-old from London Wasps.
"We have been criticised week for being too old, but with that age you get experience and mental strength, and that's what this team has in abundance.
"It was a bit frustrating. We didn't get a lot of go forward today. But in pressure situations, the guys don't panic."
Even in glorious victory, this team of many senior rugby citizens don't go mad either. A clinical victory, followed by a clinical celebration.
All Blacks test schedule/scoreboard
<i>Chris Rattue:</i> No champagne - they just did their job
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