Even our gold medal-winning women's sevens team hasn't beaten the Kiwis since Olympic celebrations in Rio.
Blues coach Tana Umaga believes this season's ills are due in part to the unsettled landscape in Australia with the axe hovering over one club but the future of many more players affected.
"When you have that, it's pretty tough to have everyone on an even keel, when everyone is always looking over their shoulder wondering 'what if?', wondering what could happen," Umaga said after his team beat the Waratahs.
He's being a little generous when the nadir was Round 16 last year with four losses to Kiwi teams and a combined 203-63 margin before the Rebels-Force saga began.
Reds coach Nick Stiles will put his side through a frame-by-frame rerun of the awful second half in New Plymouth on Saturday when the Reds gave up four tries.
That 40 minutes highlighted the gulf between a switched-on Kiwi side and one that clocks on and clocks off.
Early in the second half, when the ball bobbled into touch after centre Samu Kerevi was part-impeded the Reds simply stopped in their tracks.
Chiefs fullback Damien McKenzie took a quick throw-in and in a blink three tackles were missed and Stephen Donald goes over for the clinching try.
"You can say the Kiwis are brilliant but it's being brilliant at basic skills, their work off turnover ball and competing the whole time," Stiles said.
"We can talk structure and style but what really hurt the Reds was poor skill execution and a lack of effort in certain areas.
"We're watching it again."
Hopefully, they are watching how a very good Kiwi team goes about it at the same time
AUSTRALIA v NEW ZEALAND
in Super Rugby
23 straight losses...
AUST NZ Differential
Points scored 383 872 -489
Tries scored 47 123 -76
