KEY POINTS:
New Zealand 108
Portugal 13
Conrad Smith's return to international rugby was at times a perplexing experience.
He spent the first 60 minutes wondering whether he was going to see much ball, the next few minutes wondering why he wasn't being substituted, then, a bit later, wondering why he was being booed after scoring a try.
"There was a couple of nice bonuses at the end," Smith said of his two tries. "I wasn't actually meant to be out there after 60 minutes. I don't really know what happened but it worked out well in the end."
Smith was meant to leave the game at the hour mark and ran to the sideline waiting to be dragged. But it was a case of mixed messages and he played the full 80 minutes of the demolition of Portugal.
Even the tries weren't without incident. Smith cantered over the line for his first and, spotting that the cover defender had gone to sleep, dummied putting the ball down and ran around under the posts.
That, apparently, isn't the done thing around these parts, being seen as overly disrespectful to the opponents when the game is over as a contest.
Smith was unaware of this piece of arcane etiquette, or at least he was until his try was greeted not with rapturous cheers, but a hearty round of jeers.
"I came back and I heard them all booing so I looked at the physio and said, 'Is that at me?'. I looked into the stands and saw some guy giving me the two thumbs down and yelling French at me. I didn't really know what I'd done wrong so I just put my head down. Obviously they didn't appreciate it."
Smith admitted that given the one-sided nature of the match and the fact he was coming off a series of injuries he was guilty maybe of just trying to get through the game.
Certainly it looked at one point as if it was going to pass him by.
"I didn't seem to touch the ball too much, especially in that first half but it was just nice to get through a game," said Smith, 25, whose last two seasons have been blighted by a broken leg, a fractured eye socket, and a niggling hamstring strain that threatened to derail his World Cup.
The problem for centres and wingers in matches like that is there are so many cheap yards through the middle of the field that the ball does not need to be spread so much.
"Everyone cuts in between you and the ball so it gets quite tough. I knew that was going to be the case so I just tried to keep my wits about me."
Those wits rewarded him with his fourth and fifth test tries in his 10 tests, something that would have been greatly appreciated by his coaches, if not the French and Portuguese sections of the crowd.
