Richard Loe: Whatever ABs team turns up, it should be kid's stuff

I thought my 12-year-old son, Duke, said it all. I told him I'd got him tickets for the Bledisloe Cup match in Christchurch and he said: "Who's playing?" I looked at him as if he was mad and said: "The All Blacks versus the Wallabies." He said: "No, Dad, I mean which All Black team is playing?"

From the mouths of babes... I thought the All Black team which turned up last night had a bit of an identity crisis. I heard some say last week that this team would improve and that there were a good number of first-teamers playing. Well, I'd say there were no more than five or six first-teamers.

They have been lucky to win twice in a row and, in saying that, I have to acknowledge that the Irish were not going to win - not last week and not last night. They worked hard and played well enough but they can't see out 80 minutes.

The way Brian O'Driscoll acted up when Troy Flavell put a high one on him showed it all. Okay, it was high and it deserved a penalty, but Flavell pulled out of it while O'Driscoll put on an act that belonged in that other World Cup in Germany.

That was the only way they were going to win - to con the ref, while the All Blacks committed too many bad mistakes.

But I think All Black fans are now uncomfortable. They don't know which team is going to turn up, either. I am sure we will hear more about how good this was for this team, the intensity of a test match and all that stuff. But this team is simply not clinical enough for me.

Yes, conditions were bad, and the Irish pressured them. But they still didn't deal clinically enough with the opposition and the conditions.

It's good to expose players but I am now wondering if we are exposing the right players. The subs who came on were supposed to be impact players but Craig Newby, Greg Rawlinson and others made little impact, I thought.

I thought Carl Hayman was excellent and Marcus Horan, the Irish loosehead prop had to be a contortionist to cope with him. It was the All Black scrum that sealed the match with a series of good scrums that brought Luke McAlister's winning try - although Luke still worries me a bit at first-five.

Dermody did well, Byron Kelleher was busy and Mils Muliaina was good. Jack was average, so was Flavell, Aaron Mauger was solid, Joe Rokocoko couldn't get into fifth gear, Doug Howlett was busy, Richie McCaw worked hard but made too many mistakes for a player of his calibre, and Laulala was not particularly impressive.