In Wellington last week I kept hearing variants on that the theme that it would be great for rugby if the final test was a series showdown rather than yet another coronation.
Well, we've got what we may have carelessly wished for.
This newfound acceptance of defeat was never more manifest than in Chicago last year, where barely a tortured soul begrudged Ireland a famous, cleansing victory.
It was a momentous day for Irish rugby but may also have been a coming-of-age for New Zealand.
I was reminded of this when chancing upon an interview with Welsh journalist/ provocateur Stephen Jones.
"It's rugby that defines you and I think that's a really bad thing. There's a million other things to life than rugby but in New Zealand the obsession is ridiculous," he said.
Jones has positioned himself as the master baiter of middle New Zealand, a man who, without any sense of irony, says he puts "up a mirror against the complete lack of a sense of irony that New Zealanders have".
The funny thing is, Jones used to be able to spark national debate with a single sentence. Nowadays it is hard to find a New Zealander - other than website editors after the clicks that accompany his name - who cares about what he thinks. While Jones has stayed the same, New Zealand has changed.
You can hear it.
On Sunday, there was a noticeable absence of the sort of raw anger and hurt that normally follows a test loss. There was the odd gripe around referee Jerome Garces' inconsistency in his handling of Sonny Bill Williams' red card and Mako Vunipola's yellow, and the law-is-as-ass ruling against Charlie Faumuina that effectively levelled the series, but no one was pinning his face to a dartboard or threatening him with violence the way they did with Barnes.
You can read it, too.
New Zealand's demographics are more complicated, more fractured. The whole "rugby, racing and beer" idiom is meaningless to those born beyond the 70s. We are gradually becoming less passionate about sport and more ardent followers of entertainment.
Don't get me wrong, there's still thousands upon thousands of New Zealanders who are fanatical about rugby and the All Blacks in particular. That's mostly a good thing, too, because there are far less healthy things to be fanatical about, like organised religion and collecting semi-automatic weaponry for example.
But it's no longer a sign of disloyalty not to worship at the altar of rugby. We have more choice. It's even okay, in some cities, to like soccer.
Perhaps consecutive World Cups have turned us grateful rather than grasping. Perhaps the America's Cup victory has made us thankful rather than angsty.
Maybe life is harder and it's becoming too expensive to be fans. Perhaps we're just so attached to our smartphones now that the old rules of life in New Zealand no longer apply.
Whatever the reasons, big or small, tenuous or obvious, New Zealand, and Sue, might just be ready to lose tonight.
It's not actually going to happen though... is it?
* Not necessarily her real name.
