Phil Gifford: Five talking points from All Blacks' record win

OPINION:

No Hollywood producer would have accepted the script for Beauden Barrett's 100th test match. It would just seem too perfect, too pat.

Barrett starts with a try, then ends the game with a try? Far-fetched beyond belief, but, as we saw in the test with Wales, the 54-16 victory was actually bookended with the skill and searing pace that makes Barrett one of the best players to ever pull on the black jersey.

They say a prophet is often without honour in his own country. Or, to put it in much more basic terms, people love to swap salacious stories about local heroes they think have got up themselves.

So here's a true Barrett story, right from his home base, that shows the true character of the man. In 2016, in a break between test matches, Barrett was driving past the local primary school, Rahotu, out on the Taranaki coast.

The kids were all outside, practicing for a kapa haka competition. Barrett, whose two younger sisters were then pupils, pulled up and went to see the principal, Bridget Luke. Nothing had been arranged. There wasn't a media manager, a press release, or a television camera involved in any way.

Three years later, after a good mate in Taranaki told me the story, which he'd heard from a friend with a child at the school, I rang Luke.

She said, "He (Barrett) watched them doing the haka, and then they started asking him questions. 'What's it like doing the haka in the All Blacks?' and then it moved on to 'How many Weet-Bix can you eat?'

"He laughed, and said, 'Four.' He asked if they'd like to play a game of touch. So we had all 120 kids and him playing a huge all-in game. You know that cross kick he does? He was doing that and some of them were able to catch the ball.

"He offered to sign some autographs. There wasn't one kid who left without his name signed on a lunchbox, a forehead, or on their gumboots."

How great to discover than a player can be both a good bugger, and a winner.

The win over Wales was a fairytale triumph for Beauden Barrett in his milestone match. Photo / Getty

Meanwhile, five other talking points from the test:

Amazingly it was competitive until the last 18 minutes

If you weren't hiding in a cave on the West Coast for the last week, you'd know that Wales were decimated by injury, and players unable to get releases from English clubs.

So it was quite remarkable that for three-quarters of the game it actually felt like a real test match until the 26-point deluge in the last 18 minutes.

I'd put down the mighty effort by Wales in the first half to their starting pack having four of the tight five, both props and both locks, who took them to their Six Nations title in March. From that solid base, in 21-year-old Taine Basham they had a flanker who was as dynamic as he was ruthless. Ultimately depth off the bench would catch up with them but, as even some British critics have noted, the All Blacks hit such a brilliant stride, it's unlikely things would have changed much if Wales' best men had been available.

Ardie can do it all

There's much to admire about Ardie Savea, and a good starting point is his leg drive, which makes him so hugely difficult to bring down from what looks like a slightly too upright running stance.

But just as impressive are his handling skills and anticipation, demonstrated perfectly in the role he played in the Sevu Reece try in the 65th minute. Savea really is a hard-nosed forward with the sweet skills of a midfield back.

Ardie Savea is a rather tough man to topple. Photo / Getty

Nah, it's no fluke, he's that good

Will Jordan's try was the sort of golden moment that recalls a line from Muhammad Ali when he was at his best. "There are times," Ali told his biographer Thomas Hauser, "when it feels as everything is in slow motion, and I have time to consider every move."

Jordan's brilliance is in the way he's able to sum up a situation and take advantage of it. When he took a high kick in the 53rd minute he was 55 metres from the Welsh line. For the first 10 or 15 metres he loped forward as casually as a kid in a park kicking a ball around with his mates. Then, picking out replacement forward Will Rowlands, he accelerated past the poor Welshman so swiftly it wouldn't have been surprising if ground microphones had picked up the whoosh of afterburners. A perfect kick over the head of halfback Tomos Williams, followed by a one-sided race to the goal-line, and the try was in the bag.

It's far too soon to start calling Jordan a great player, but he already shares one attribute with a great like Dan Carter. Jordan can make the very difficult look ridiculously easy.

Will Jordan has the makings of a special player. Photo / Getty

A very crowded house

The competition for loose forward places in the All Blacks gets more intense by the week. There's been the rapid rise of Ethan Blackadder, and Dalton Papalii served up a reminder of how tough and industrious he is, with a driving try (from a very athletic Blackadder lineout take) capping off an excellent test. With Ardie Savea in magic form, adding Sam Cane and Akira Ioane to the mix means the selection of the loose trio for the tests with Ireland and France become a fascinating side issue on its own.

Never let a chance go by

Our favourite British rugby writer, Stephen Jones, hasn't had much of a chance to lambast the current All Blacks lately, having to rely on suggesting retired greats Richie McCaw and Dan Carter were over-rated.

But some things in the universe stay the same, even in these turbulent times, and Stephen is back in Kiwi bashing form, lashing out in London's Sunday Times at the "cynical, money-making exercise" the Cardiff test was.

Never one to let the chance of a cultural insult slip by, he described the haka as a gurning, posing, panto ritual before sneering that "the All Blacks are no longer the drawcard they were, or perhaps still think there are".

He apparently was unaware that 74,500 filled the stadium for the Cardiff test and that the ground sold out six weeks before kick-off.