There was something a little toxic in the Twickenham air that day, something the Herald's Gregor Paul documented on Sunday. With the World Cup looming and the All Blacks shaping as the biggest threat to stopping England winning on home soil, grudging respect seems to have been replaced by contempt.
The All Blacks, in England at least, have become copybook villains: they're arrogant; they intimidate the refs; they're too precious about the haka; they cheat.
English fans sang while the All Blacks performed the haka at Twickenham. Photo / Getty
(It should be pointed out here that this is no condemnation of the English fans. It's their home, they've paid good money to watch and to ask them to sit and clap politely is about as silly as asking an Eden Park crowd to stop booing Quade Cooper. It might be juvenile, it might be misplaced, but mob mentality has a history of trumping righteousness.)
The McCaw bile makes for an interesting microcosm that in many ways mirrors the global perception of the All Blacks: here in New Zealand, and among rugby neutrals, McCaw is seen as a modern-day genius, an indomitable warrior who has mixed perspiration and inspiration to forge arguably the greatest career of them all; among fans of most other tier-one nations, he is rugby's equivalent of Bernie Madoff, perhaps the greatest white-collared criminal the 15-man game has ever seen.
His excellence at Twickenham served only to further entrench those views.
Rewind one week earlier to Chicago, Illinois, and the narrative was so different it was like putting down Blyton and picking up Hemingway.
In the Windy City you either didn't know about the All Blacks, or you loved them.
New Zealanders, about 280 of them on the specially chartered Air New Zealand flight to Chicago, and thousands more expats, poured into the city from other parts of the US and Canada, were thick on the ground. But they were, despite what you may have been led to believe, vastly outnumbered by rugby enthusiasts from the States, here to catch the rare opportunity of seeing the best team in the world in their country.
The All Blacks embarked on a promotional whirlwind, training in front of the All Blacks Tours group, taking part in Q&A sessions with the same fans, turning up at AIG-sponsored events, adidas-promoted events and a USA Rugby gala dinner.
Sam Whitelock, Dane Coles, Malakai Fekitoa, Beauden Barrett, Richie McCaw and Ben Smith pose for a photo as they attend the Chicago Bulls v Cleveland Cavaliers NBA game. Photo / Getty
They might not have made the front pages of the local papers, or the back for that matter, but they were in demand. They were selling a sport, sure, but more particularly, they were selling a brand, the All Black brand, the most prestigious brand in world rugby, including the Lions.
The irony is, being the good guys is probably harder than playing the villain.
You can feed off the hate. The sense that everyone is against you can produce a siege mentality that, harnessed properly, can produce epic performances. The All Blacks know that an early elimination from the World Cup next year - and an early exit would be any time before the final - will instigate a tidal wave of schadenfreude, just like '07 and '03 before. That's okay, being the team everybody wants to beat is fortifying.
Love is a lot more tiring. It means smiling in public. It means treating everybody that wants a "selfie" with you with good grace. It means answering the same old questions about the same old haka and making sure you're dressed in the appropriately sponsored kit for the appropriate occasion.
Hate helps you win; love sells you shirts.
Never was that dichotomy so obvious as the first two weeks of this tour. In Chicago, the All Blacks played the role of the ultimate salesmen; at Twickers they were Evil Empire.
And in both places, they played their roles pitch perfectly.
• Dylan Cleaver travelled to the US and UK with All Blacks Tours. Go to allblackstours.com to book your World Cup packages.
