ABs' patience exposes Wallabies' underbelly

Those empty seats at Jade Stadium last night would have been filled had Cantabrians known for sure that the phoney war of the past few weeks had ended.

It most certainly has ended. We had a classic blood-and-snotters contest - old style, with grown-up scrums, backline moves - the works.

It was mixed nicely with a touch of modern. The marauding Chris Jack made compelling viewing as he stormed around in the backs and the unexpected re-introduction of Kapa O Pango set the hairs tingling.

Last Thursday's get-together did the trick for the All Blacks. Graham Henry's uncomplimentary blast obviously went in one ear and then took residence on cerebral matter.

The lineout, an ugly boil of a thing against Ireland and Argentina, has been lanced. The defensive gate that had flapped in the gale created by Ireland's Brian O'Driscoll, has been nailed shut, while the scrums, tasty enough these past weeks, would have had some grown men moist with pleasure.

That particular battle was so real that the Wallaby forwards must have felt like those French soldiers who had to front the Maginot Line back in 1939 as the Panzer division gave Blitzkrieg its first airing.

Poor old Greg Holmes, Tai McIsaac and Guy Shepherdson proved just as feckless as those French soldiers. The Wallaby frontrow, confronted with someone scarier than Ireland's John Hayes, beat a hasty retreat at every scrum.

It was watching the black phalanx so in control at the scrum that settled the home team. After 20 minutes it was apparent that the Wallaby forwards were still the soft underbelly they were last year.

From there, the All Blacks could smell blood and that is arguably the big difference between the All Blacks under Henry and the All Blacks under previous coach John Mitchell.

Henry has given his side the leadership tools they need to steer the ship for themselves.

He's obviously been helped by the fact the players are maturing naturally. There is experience across the team now.

But experience and knowledge are not the same thing. When the Wallabies were undeniably under pressure, the All Black forwards knew to keep attacking the fringes.

They knew the last thing Holmes and his chums wanted to do was get involved in more physical stuff. So the runners kept coming off Byron Kelleher's shoulder.

It was smart stuff. As half-time approached, and with Rocky Elsom in the bin for getting lippy as much as anything else, the ball stayed in hand and the space opened up for two crucial tries to be scored.

Everyone in black seemed to be aware that if they were patient, kept the heavy machinery rolling through fat man's alley that the Wallabies would start faltering out wide.

They did and Aaron Mauger came into his own. The All Black vice-captain plays with wide-screen vision. If he wasn't carving through himself he was cleverly weighting his passes for someone else to do it.

But if Mauger was the second half hero, it was a mantle he took from Kelleher who must have felt the shame of last week's dressing down most acutely, for the halfback delivered his finest performance since Paris 2004.

While George Gregan roamed from east to west, Kelleher travelled north to south, sniping expertly round the fringes and cleverly off-loading to a willing crew of ball-carrying forwards.

It was the perfect riposte to a selection that was not unanimously recognised as deserved.

As for the other contentious selection - Mils Muliaina at centre - well, judgement should be withheld until the defence can deliver more evidence.

On the plus side, Stirling Mortlock was barely sighted, there was plenty of width to the All Black attack and there was a pleasing lack of horrific errors.

Muliaina, though, still looked a little uncertain at times as if he was learning on the job.