Editorial: McCaw, thou Great Redeemer

All Blacks Captain/flanker Richie McCaw. Photo / Greg Bowker

It's easy to feel cocooned in the aftermath of All Blacks vengeance, when one hasn't watched a bare second of the pulverisation of our guests, the Wallabies.

Suddenly we seem over Dirty Politics. Questionable activity in and around the Beehive displaced, replaced by the performing perfection of men on a Saturday night. We are, of course, talking rugby.

Maaaate. John Key. Make way for Richie McCaw and Co. Save the country a small fortune, because there would be no need for an election. Only one side in it.

The point is that when it's the All Blacks, it doesn't matter what happened before (a 12-all draw last week). A "blip" as one commentator called it yesterday. An "aberration" said another. All is redeemed.

While the weekend's sporting ecstasy is good news on a national scale, it is also good news to those wanting to pack McLean Park in Napier in 12 days' time for the All Blacks' next venture, against Argentina, who possibly fancy themselves after almost rolling South Africa yesterday morning at a high-altitude place called Salta.

Folly. Everyone in New Zealand today knows Los Pumas will be brought back down to sea level, victims of a scoreline not too dissimilar to when the ABs last played McLean Park and beat Samoa 51-10 in June 1996.

They weren't such a bad outfit then, either. Four weeks later, they beat the Wallabies 43-6. One commentator called it "the most complete All Blacks performance from the most complete All Blacks 15 ever assembled on a rugby paddock at one time."

Mysteriously, prior to kick-off on Saturday, at least 2000 tickets to the Napier test had not been sold, but as one of those charged with making sure every plot is occupied on the night says "you'd be mad not to be there."

As mad as missing Saturday night. Exquisite, magic, splendid. Rugby is more than just a game.