Whatever it may have looked like, the All Blacks can take a fair amount of pride and satisfaction from their efforts at Twickenham.
It's not a fortress, but it is a tough place to win. England aren't quite where they want to be in terms of their own development, but they are far enough along and they presented the All Blacks with significant challenges.
Like the set-piece. Like the rolling maul, like the contest at the breakdown.
The score suggests it was closer than it perhaps was, but not by much. The All Blacks, then, will know they didn't get the attacking flow they were after. They will know they made a couple of bad decisions at times that gave England momentum and points and they will know that their lineout and scrummaging were a long way off.
But what they will also know is they took control of the game at a time that mattered.
They came out after the break and found control and accuracy. They were on track to put England away in that same mid-point they destroyed England in Dunedin until Dane Coles was yellow carded.
His jersey was held, but no excuse: the rules are clear and lashing out with his boot the way he did, he can be relieved it wasn't red.
That changed everything. At 16-14 ahead and building nicely, England should have pounced.
But pressure is the All Blacks' thing these days. They didn't really get into their work until they felt it: like a student with a long deadline only to leave the assignment until the last minute.
They came alive when they went down to 14 men. They drove the ball well, they protected it better and found more holes. They had England reeling at that stage and when a team does that with 14 men, they know they are going to win.
The critical score came when Charlie Faumuina blasted over from short range - a move that was impressive not for the ending, but for the discipline and control that preceded it.
That was the ball game. The victory was New Zealand's then because England, frankly, were never going to score two tries in the last 10 minutes.
They were good enough to exert pressure through their ability to retain possession, but couldn't compound it with their use of it. In fairness, it was their first game since being walloped in Hamilton five months ago.
But their ambition was limited. Their awareness not where it was either in June or in 2012 when they had a pretty good handle on where the space lay.
Today, there was a bit too much plodding. A bit too much first man banging it up and recycling. When they hammered away for a while before half time and then decided it was better just to fling it to Owen Farrell in the pocket and try the drop goal, it screamed of a side lacking in genuine belief.
It also felt awfully like England still get a little edgy with too much ball-in-hand rugby: a few phases is okay, but after a while they can't help reverting to what they know best.
The exception of course was left wing Johnny May who cut the most unlikely but devastating figure.
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