New Zealand's Will Jordan runs the ball against France. Photo / Photosport.co.nz
OPINION:
There is, however much the blindly patriotic choose to deny it, a definite sense that New Zealand's rugby empire is eroding.
It's not heading towards an imminent collapse, but there is a growing bank of evidence that New Zealand is no longer in the midst of a golden age.
It was once unthinkable, on the basis it didn't happen in 111 years of trying, that Ireland would ever beat the All Blacks and yet two weeks ago, they did it for the third time in five tests.
A day later and for the first time in 17 years, not a single All Black made the shortlist for World Player of the Year.
Empires don't tend to dramatically fall without warning, but instead they almost imperceptibly decline, the true extent of the damage often obscured or masked by misleading indicators of success.
This is arguably true of the All Blacks, who have won five of the last six Rugby Championships, including this year's.
But South Africa didn't play last year and were a basket case in 2016 and 2017 and Australia and Argentina have sat outside the top tier of global heavyweights since they peaked at the 2015 World Cup.
The statistics that are unearthed by digging a little deeper paint a less flattering picture.
In November 2009 the All Blacks, after a torrid start to the year where they had lost four of their first eight tests, climbed to the top of the world rankings.
Over the next six years, the All Blacks lost just six tests and drew twice, winning two World Cups along the way.
By comparison, between November 2015 and November 2021, the All Blacks have lost 12 tests and drawn three times.
The All Blacks have lost double the number of tests in the last six years compared with the previous six and maybe the best way to interpret those numbers is to conclude that what's changed is that the All Blacks no longer win the crunch tests with the same frequency as they used to.
They haven't lost that art entirely, as they beat England at Twickenham in 2018, South Africa and Ireland in the World Cup a year later and the Springboks again this year when the Rugby Championship was up for grabs.
But so too did they fail to put the British Lions away in 2017. They have also lost twice to Ireland and South Africa, France and of course, England at the World Cup.
As a further illustration of how things have changed in the last six years, the snapshot of the landscape in November 2015 showed the All Blacks and New Zealand Under-20s were the reigning world champions and Dan Carter player of the year.
Six years on and the All Blacks are no longer world champions or even the number one ranked side and the Under-20 side finished seventh the last time the Junior World Championship was played in 2019.
The erosion is undeniable and its cause is easy to identify because two significant elements underpinning the empire can also trace the beginnings of their decline back to late November 2015.
New Zealand Rugby, excluding 2017 when the British Lions toured, has incurred consistent financial losses in the last six years.
And 2016 was the year Super Rugby expanded to 18 teams, killing the credibility and intensity of a competition that was once the envy of the world.
New Zealand's rugby media are trying to push the public into believing that the erosion of the empire is being caused exclusively by NZR appointing the wrong All Blacks coaching team in 2020.
But the single greatest factor in driving this downward All Blacks trend has been the demise of Super Rugby, which has exposed New Zealand's players to too many weak opponents playing a similar style of rugby.
Inviting teams from Japan and Argentina while giving South Africa and Australia greater representation created a world where New Zealand's best teams were no longer challenged to the same degree and over time, this softer environment has impacted the All Blacks.
Super Rugby used to make greater and more varied demands of New Zealand's players. One week a team could be in Pretoria, trying to graft a win against the muscular Bulls and be in Canberra the next, trying to breakdown their prescriptive but effective structured gameplan.
Most New Zealanders understand that Super Rugby has been irreparably damaged by the ill-advised expansion of 2016, but not everyone has drawn the dots to the All Blacks and made the connection that international players are a product of their domestic environments.
New Zealand's players have lost or are prone to temporarily misplacing the art of playing attrition rugby not because it has been coached out of them, but because it has become an alien concept to them until they slam up against it when they meet South Africa or the Six Nations sides.
The system looks more broken than the coaching set-up and while there is a strong public desire to see Scott Robertson promoted on the back of the success he's had in Super Rugby, it's increasingly hard not to believe that the Crusaders are the best team in a weak competition rather than necessarily being a great side.
They have played sublime, attacking rugby in recent seasons and yet curiously, although they have picked up five titles in the last five years, which compares with the zero that the Crusaders won between 2009 and 2016, the players who graduated into the All Blacks from that barren era, were better equipped to play test rugby than their all-conquering successors.
Better equipped because the system exposed them to more variation of styles, stronger opposition and forged tougher mind-sets and greater resilience.
Could it be that the All Blacks won more of the crunch encounters between 2012 and 2015 because their players developed must-have traits in Super Rugby that were refined in the test arena?
Money has impacted Super Rugby in two distinct ways. The first is that it drove an exodus of talent in South Africa after the 2015 World Cup.
The Sharks, Lions, Bulls and Stormers were shadows of their former selves between 2016 and 2019 – horribly weakened by their best players leaving for better pay in Europe and Japan.
In New Zealand, cash has been found to keep the biggest names in but the next tier down – handy, seasoned professionals with four or five seasons experience and plenty to offer Super Rugby, have been harder to retain.
Good players such as Lachlan Boshier, Gerard Cowley Tuioti, Matt Proctor, Michael Collins and Whetu Douglas have all gone a season or two earlier than anyone would have liked.
The upshot is that the depth of New Zealand's teams is not what it once was and changing rooms around the country have been missing experience, standard bearers and mentors – something which has been exaggerated by allowing the top tier of talent to negotiate sabbatical seasons in Japan.
The empire won't collapse, but it needs a means to slow or stop the erosion so the All Blacks can strike back.
Josh Hazlewood grabbed four wickets for Australia’s red-hot pace attack.