The one constant area of excellence has been their scrummaging, which was too powerful for England, way too much for Fiji and at Eden Park against Argentina, it provided the base from which the forwards went on to produce their first truly dominant performance of the season.
Such has been the nature of their scrummaging in 2024, that it is important to make the distinction that this is an area of the game the All Blacks are not just good at, but one which they are destructively good at.
They have taken their scrummaging to a new level this year - elevated it from being an impressive part of their offering to a weaponised part of their gameplan that sits at the core of everything they do.
Good scrummaging teams can use their set-piece stability to launch effective strike plays, but destructive scrummaging teams can use their dominance to secure penalties, relieve pressure or gain territory, earn the benefit of launching strike plays under advantage and most critically, inflict deep psychological wounds on their opponents.
Argentina, who admittedly were never a strong bet to reach the same heights in Auckland as they did in Wellington, had whatever confidence was in their system drained out of them by an All Blacks scrummaging onslaught.
In Wellington, there were just four scrums – the first of which packed down after 60 minutes – but in Auckland, where conditions were dire for most of the game, Argentina couldn’t escape being drawn into set-piece warfare.
Their inability to cope with what they faced crushed them both physically and mentally, and they were left with a sense of hopelessness seeing how almost every time they packed down. The result would be their phalanx retreating at a rate of knots, the referee’s arm shooting up, and then Jordie Barrett thumping the resulting penalty deep into Pumas’ territory.
There is no contest like the scrum to act as the universal arbiter to determine which pack is the strongest and mentally toughest, and when a team can destroy another the way the All Blacks did Argentina, the confidence that comes from that pervades to every other physical battleground.
And this is where the bulk of the intrigue lies in the All Blacks’ forthcoming two-test series against South Africa.
No one understands the power of a dominant and destructive scrum better than the South Africans.
They get that the scrum is test rugby’s crucible, the place where opponents can’t hide or fudge what they are all about, and if they find weakness there, they will subject the All Blacks to a relentless physical examination in all aspects of their work.
The Boks’ mentality in 100-plus years of playing has never changed - everything starts with the scrum, and what looms first at Ellis Park, and then in Cape Town, is a season-defining scrummaging battle that will provide the most instructive evidence to date as to how ready the All Blacks are to take back the number one ranking.
What the All Blacks have shown under head coach Scott Robertson is that their scrum is their everything, their magical energy source that leads into all other areas of their game.
The success of the mission to South Africa, therefore, hinges on the ability of the All Blacks’ scrum to continue to do what it has done so far this year and produce penalties and instil doubt within the Springboks.
But it’s one thing to bust open Argentina, even England, but the South Africans are a different scrummaging beast entirely.
It was their destructive scrummaging power that got them to the World Cup final.
England had them on the ropes in the semifinal, but once the Boks brought on the bomb squad and the irrepressible Ox Nche at tighthead, the game turned.
When the All Blacks last met the Boks in the World Cup final the scrummaging contest was hard to assess, as for much of the game, New Zealand played with a man down due to the red card to Sam Cane.
Neither side really dominated or was able to weaponise their scrum, but almost a year on and it may prove an entirely different case, as the All Blacks have built scrummaging strength in depth, which they maybe didn’t have last year.
Now they can pick almost any combination of props and hookers and be confident that they can sustain their scrummaging horsepower for the full 80 minutes.
Ethan de Groot is under an injury cloud, but it won’t matter as Tamaiti Williams has advanced enormously as a scrummager in the last 12 months, as have Fletcher Newell and hooker Asafo Aumua.
The scrum contest for world supremacy that never quite happened in Paris last year will play out in South Africa and it’s a battle for which the All Blacks look ready.
