KEY POINTS:
Losing Carl Hayman was supposedly going to be the death of All Blacks' scrummaging. Just as Samson lost all his strength when he cut his hair, the All Blacks were going to suffer a similar reduction in power as a consequence of Hayman joining Newcastle.
That theory turned out to be every bit as wrong as the one espoused by former Wallaby Andrew Blades who reckoned Tony Woodcock was a myth - a charlatan whose scrummaging would be exposed without Hayman or Anton Oliver doing the donkey work next to him.
Further accusations were thrown last week with Springbok coach Peter de Villiers claiming that the All Blacks' scrummaging superiority has only been achieved through illegal means.
All this mudslinging suggests the Boks and Wallabies are running scared. That they have run out of ways to tackle the All Blacks scrum and have resorted to calling them cheats in the hope it might put some doubt in the mind of future match officials.
It's easy to understand the fear being felt about the All Black scrum. Most international packs tend to be similar collective weights and the individuals of similar strength. Yet the All Blacks have made a mess of every international scrum in the last two years and have weathered the departure of Hayman, Oliver, Chris Jack and Jerry Collins.
What the Boks and others are finally realising is that the All Blacks scrummaging power has been achieved by design rather than luck and that systems are in place now to keep New Zealand as the world's premier scrummaging nation for the foreseeable future.
Driving the revolution is scrum coach Mike Cron, the man who is globally recognised as the best there is. When the All Blacks returned from the World Cup and began the cull of their specialist coaching team, there was one man who was never going to get the chop.
Cron is a bio-mechanics genius - a master of the dark art - and the All Blacks wouldn't be the scrummaging force they are without him.
What Cron gives the All Blacks is the technical edge, the little secrets that make all the difference.
The rest of the world hammers into the scrum machine leading into a test - not the All Blacks.
"We have to maintain our basic principles of scrummaging and maintain spine in line, the most powerful pushing position and we continually do that," says Cron. "What we have done is probably find the odd little training drill that allows us to understand that better.
"I borrow from other sports - wrestling, Sumo, judo, anything like that where I can go and watch and pick up the odd little thing. This week we will hit the scrum machine a total of six times. We might do a bit more in other weeks but that is normally about it.
"The scrum machine is good for timing and it is good for barring up to get reality you have to get off the machine and scrum live whether it be drills, one-on-one, three on three, four on four or whatever."
On those few occasions when the All Blacks do hit the scrum machine, they need to stick almost 2500kg on it for there to be any resistance.
When Cron first came into the job in 2004, the pack were struggling to nudge 1200kg. A year later they were pushing 2000kg and now they are half a tonne heavier again.
The continued improvement Cron believes is due to a dissemination of knowledge. Cron is attached to both the All Blacks and the New Zealand Rugby Union high performance unit where he has quietly built a little coaching empire.
Each Super 14 franchise now has a dedicated scrum coach, all of whom are Cron disciples. It's effectively a centralised programme where the franchise coaches come to learn from the great man which builds a commonality of technique and training drills across the country.
Cron is a straight talker. He doesn't gloss over the cracks. So when he says he's excited by the athleticism and attitude of newcomers such as Anthony Boric and is confident in the ability of John Afoa, he's genuine.
And he's also genuine when he says that the country is in the best place it has been for five years in terms of talent coming through.
"Carl Hayman was a world class player and it is not easy to replace a world class player," says Cron.
"He was a bit of a freak being the size he was and being able to do the job he did. But in saying that we have got a guy who has just become the most capped prop in NZ history in Greg Somerville. We have got a young guy who has come through the age grades, John Afoa, and he's going good and below him we have a lot of good young talent at prop.
"It is the strongest I think it has ever been."
That assertion has held up to scrutiny. In 2004 Kees Meeuws suddenly quit and in came Woodcock. Hayman left and Somerville lifted his game to fill the void. The week Somerville announced he will soon join Gloucester, in stepped Neemia Tialata with two outstanding performances.
Afoa, at just 24, could become a special player if he continues to hone his technique and learn his craft while Jamie Mackintosh is on Cron's radar.
No wonder the Boks and Wallabies are scared. They have neither the quality or depth of personnel and they don't have the structure in place to build a consistency of technique from an early age. And most importantly they don't have Cron.
