Yes your eyes do not deceive you. The All Blacks have kept their Gallic nemesis scoreless for the first time ever in their history.
It was not as if the French played badly - in fact, they showed plenty of flair in difficult conditions but ultimately were second rate to a brilliant All Blacks side who did everything well - defend, tackle, scrummage, lineouts, breakdowns, kick, etc.
This was a performance that this All Blacks side were hoping to deliver after a mediocre effort in the first test and boy did everyone from 1 to 23 deliver. No wonder they stopped awarding the man of match award - it would be quite hard to isolate one person for performance of the game as every man in black played a blinder.
And thus, they deservedly retained the Dave Gallaher Cup in front of a capacity crowd in Christchurch. Their performance was capped by two of the best counter-attacking tries you'll ever see - the first one was a beauty with the French going 30 phases with the ball in the ABs half without being able to breach the red line, then turning over the ball after a failed drop goal attempt by Freddie Michalak, and breaking out quickly before Ben Smith capped a wonderful move that involved Kieran Read, Dane Coles and the rampaging Julian Savea.
If this was a statement game, then this was one statement written in the largest font size, in bold and underlined twice.
One wonders now if Dan Carter and Richie McCaw can actually get back into the side with their younger understudies performing so well. The same question must be asked of Keven Mealamu, Andrew Hore and Cory Jane - New Zealand rugby is truly well and alive.
The only negative now, is can anyone find $100,000 to buy out Rene Ranger's contract with Montpellier?
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