Sport is always about bringing performances week in and week out. For the two teams involved in the second Tri Nations game tonight, South Africa and New Zealand, one kept the same level as last week and another stepped up marginally.

South Africa were totally outplayed last week. This week they performed at a good standard at points in this game - 10 min after half-time, a few patches in the second half - which may be enough to get them over Australia, but not this current All Blacks side.

The story for NZ was the opposite. For the majority of the game we played an outstanding, exciting kind of rugby, but something which has cropped up over the 5 tests we've had this season is that there's been a consistent teething period of 5 - 10 minutes when the bench has rolled on where everything turns a little Yakety Sax.

Passes that are more like 20/80 than 50/50 get thrown, forwards get left to chase down stab-through kicks and players are caught out of position on returns. It's a lucky thing that the All Blacks' coaches have such emphasis on defence or this period of games could have proven costly at this point in the season.

On the whole though, this team is peaking. It's still early in the campaign and I'm reluctant to say it until we play Australia but I really don't see them offering anything in the way of a challenge, so I'll throw it out there.

This is a 2005 standard All Blacks unit. We pantsed the Lions that year and aside from South Africa nobody even looked like touching us. This season it appears that it'll be the same story, except not even SA is near us. Yes, you can feel free to come back here and point out how I was wrong if we lose one.

It's a tough thing to go undefeated - in fact, we haven't done it since 1997 when we won 11 and drew with England - but this is an All Blacks side which isn't demolishing teams in a dominant fashion, it's subtly and slowly piling on pressure and leaving other sides to play catchup.

In terms of tonight's performances, there are a couple of standouts and a couple who deserve a bit of a seeing to. First up is Dan Carter. Much is always made of his 'form slumps' and how he has purple patches but this is a two-way street. He was given a lot of space and time last week as the Boks appeared to focus on Cowan and Nonu, whereas this week he was almost completely nullifed. Even when he managed to get a kick off it was pretty touch-and-go. His goalkicking wasn't up to par but it's something commented on every time he plays in Wellington.

Next was Rene Ranger. He's had to slot in to a semi-established combo, but I'm left to wonder why Zac Guilford didn't get the call up. Ranger's a good player, but he's one of those young Carlos Spencer hit-or-miss players, even on defence. Whenever he has the ball in his hands he's looking to spark something - usually for himself - and when he's tackling he goes in 100% and either knocks someone for 6 or gets beaten. I just think somebody needs to sit him down and remind him he's in a team of outstanding players, not the Blues or Northland.

In terms or praises, I'm gonna wax lyrical about the loose forwards. We've finally got a trio to replace the effectiveness of the So'oialo/Collins/Masoe relationship. One of the massive benefits of musketeers McCaw/Read/Kaino is that all of them can play for 80 minutes, and all of them can play at each position. In a discussion during tonight's game the question 'who is the best player in international rugby at the moment' came up - the usual suspects, McCaw, Bryan Habana, Dan Carter were thrown up but I think Kieran Read is getting near that mix. He's everywhere on defence, he clears the ruck and fetches, he can link with backs and how many times have we seen him throw that last offload 5m from the line to a back to storm over? Mainstream pundits, you can go on and on about Pierre Spies but this year Read is better. And that's coming from a reformed Read hater.

I didn't want to write anything throughout the week in case I jinxed the team again, but here's a bit of a milestone that was missed by those in the media. Remember all those weeks ago when I wrote that the last time the All Blacks didn't score a try was in 2004? [Here it is if you missed it] Well tonight's game was the 75th consecutive game that the ABs have managed to cross the white line.

So from here we turn the evil eye of Mordor to Brisbane for next week's tussle between the under-performing Boks and the baby Wallabies. Can either side step up and offer something that will put a stick in the front wheel of the Kawasaki that is the 2010 All Blacks?

Final score: All Blacks 31, South Africa 17.

All Blacks;
Tries to Ma'a Nonu, Mils Muliana, Rene Ranger, Israel Dagg. Dan Carter 2 penalties, 1 conversion, Piri Weepu 1 penalty.

South Africa;
Tries to Danie Rossouw and Schalk Burger.
Morne Steyn 1 penalty, 2 conversions.

 So the South Africans came to Eden Park to try and overturn a legacy of unbeaten All Black sides and continue their Tri Nations form from last season, but the Blacks stood up and said 'like fuck!'

In the heart of latte country and in front of a capacity* crowd, the New Zealanders were the superlative side and picked apart a bokke carcass that struggled to provide any real answers.

It looked tight for the first quarter with both sides mounting some promising attack and meeting stoic defense and each walking away with 3 points, though the All Blacks' gained a one man advantage when Bakkies Botha was sent off.

Bakkies will probably be seeing the judiciary in the next couple of days after being caught on camera tackling Jimmy Cowan and headbutting him from behind. Bakkies was mistaken if he thought this would affect Jimmy's gameplaying ability, as the Southern man is used to a sore head from years of drinking sessions - if anything it brought back the 2007 era Jimmy, a man unafraid to run straight at the biggest man on the field.

The only concern I'd like to raise is with regard to the tactical kicking. There wasn't much and when it was attempted it wasn't pretty. The ABs have gained Mils Muliana back from injury, but it's worth throwing up for discussion that Israel Dagg's tactical abilities, at the moment at least, appear to have the edge.

The return from injury of Mils and Ma'a Nonu was superb with both players performing as though they'd been in the team and getting minutes for the entire Steinlager Series. Mils' first touch of the ball made people in pubs up and down the country throw their hands in the air as he went up to field a kick and landed awkwardly, coughing up the pill. From then on he atoned for his sins, setting Dan Carter, Cory Jane and Joe Rokocoko alight as he split through the South African defense on the counter-attack like the Russian forces against Napolean.

Ma'a had a standout game as far as I'm concerned, working the draw-and-pass with great effect and putting up a few kicks [?!] which wouldn't have been the preferred option but were very successful. And one which wasn't.

Piri Weepu came off the bench with 25m left and once again showed why he's an explosive bench player - he comes off and injects a sense of pace in the backline, getting to the ruck and spreading the ball faster than the tired opposition defense can react.

In terms of set piece, both the lineout and scrum have progressed since last season. The All Black scrum, in my opinion, hasn't been a concern since 2008 - since then we've managed to hold our own. But how fantastic was it to not only see them hold their own, but the green-booted South African loosies backpedalling and slipping as the All Black pack put the heat on in several scrums.

Every team's lineout should be judged against the South African side as long as Victor Matfield is on the field and I'd say ours is at the same level, which it arguably hasn't been since 2006 when the Ali Williams/Matfield rivalry was at its fiercest. Keven Mealamu, Brad Thorn and Tom Donnelly were in sync throughout the whole game and once the Springboks sent on their bench their lineout fell to pieces.

The most noteable thing to walk away with though is penalties. This is what lost us the games against the republic last season. Morne Steyn can kick almost anything within a range of 50m of the posts so it was fantastic to see him only get a few chances and have to look for two drop goals - once as a last resort and once on an offensive drive that would have left a few South African players unimpressed with his decision. That's something to be applauded.

Final score: All Blacks 32, South Africa 12.

All Blacks;
Tries to Conrad Smith [16th international try], Ma'a Nonu [15th international try], Kieran Read [2nd international try], Tony Woodcock [6th international try]. Dan Carter 2 penalties, 3 conversions.

South Africa;
Morne Steyn 4 penalties.

How on earth can we judge the merits of this All Blacks performance when a test match effectively became a mismatch before even quarter of an hour had passed? We can't, that's the simple answer.

Excuse me, Marc Hinton, but I'm going to disagree with that. We can analyse last night's 66-28 win. STOP. Hammertime:

Lineouts:

 We had a lineout which operated well, keeping all of our throws and competed with the Irish - winning one of theirs and in two other Irish throws we looked like almost skimming it off the top too. Boric, Thorn and Whitelock worked well for their respective stints. Mealamu's throws looked to be hitting the correct tempo and while he only threw [I think] one in, Aled de Malmanche had it sailing right down the middle like a silver arrow.

Scrums:

Some concerns came out of this. The two Franks boys and Mealamu had a respectable night up the front but there wasn't much communication with the rest of the pack - we got pinged for pushing early on one feed and it had happened a few other times throughout the night. Kaino and McCaw got caught on the back foot detaching a couple of times and allowed an Irish scrum without a number 8 to get some metres off the set piece.

Forwards:

In general the A unit combined well. It was clear, however, that we weren't competing at the ruck in our half. Not that we were getting dominated but we weren't going for it. There were several times when the Irish would have a ruck with one defender - in one case there was no-one there - and the forwards didn't go for it. So, it didn't come as a surprise to me when the Irish counter-ruck attack had some initial success in the second half. It seemed to be a clear tactic from the team though, perhaps in an effort to minimise penalties - I remember the Blues using a similar tactic in the Super 14.

I was surprised to learn that Kieran Read hadn't scored a try before because he's often been a linking player. Kaino had a bruising night around the ruck and there'll be a few Irish players who struggled to sleep last night with the image of him sprinting at them emblazoned on their eyelids. Owen and Ben Franks got around the field well - as you'd expect from two brothers - and Mealamu had an exceptional night. He's not the bruising battering ram that Andrew Hore and de Malmanche are, but he's stoic and I didn't seem him make any mistakes. Richie was Richie, I don't know if I need to elaborate. A lot of positive factors from last night's match.

Backs:

I'm going to start off with a negative, though I don't want to. It was his first match and he's in there because of injuries, but Benson Stanley didn't have the abilities of an international second-five. His distribution was great and his running ability was fine, but it was clear that he wasn't physical enough. He got beaten on the inside on defence a fair few times, and brushed off on others. Perhaps it's because I'm used to seeing physical players in the mold of Ma'a Nonu, Stirling Mortlock and Mathieu Bastareud but he didn't come across as a Jaque Fourie or Berrick Barnes.

I'm being harsh but the reason those players succeed and Stanley got shown up a bit is that when you're defending a 12, you need to do two things - shut him down and limit his passing ability. Stanley would do one or the other and it led to the d-line getting burned a lot. But this isn't me calling for him to be dropped - he worked VERY well with Dan and Conrad and this is something that will be picked up on and highlighted in tape sessions no doubt.

To the rest of the back-line, Jimmy Cowan didn't have his best night I didn't think, but it wasn't too bad either. Dan Carter was Dan Carter [see Richie McCaw] and should be commended on his fantastic goal kicking. Conrad Smith atoned for that awful match he played for the Hurricanes against the Waratahs. He was well set on defense and the amount of times he broke the backline and set Cory, Israel or Joe up with open space was great. It was also good to see a player who doesn't often get highlighted get rewarded for his work with a well-deserved try. Cory Jane had an interesting night. He was fine with the ball in hand but there were a few times where he was caught drifting off his man. Israel Dagg had one glaring mistake which almost cost a try when he misjudged a kick and couldn't pick it up, but he definitely didn't look like a youngster on debut, and nor did he, Joe and Cory look like a back 3 who'd never played together. Joe Rokocoko had a Joe Rokocoko kind of night. No major mistakes, was positionally aware, but with the ball in hand couldn't spark that x factor to get across the line and for that reason seemed a bit invisible.

Another thing worth looking at is the restarts - and there were a lot of them - there were two times I saw when the man fielding the kickoff was set and had his lifters with him, only to be dropped. There was also a lineout where Sam Whitelock [I think] got dropped.

The four tries scored against us is a yard-stick that many are using to judge last night's performance but I think a better measure would be the amount of time the Irish spent in our 22 and the ease they seemed to have getting there. It's commendable that we didn't concede a penalty in that situation until late in the game, but it needs to be highlighted that the Irish would get the ball from their territory to ours with relative ease until we manned up. Remember that before Heaslip got sent off they were camped on our line and had been in the 5m line for 8 phases or so.

As to that knee, I think it deserves the same treatment as a gouge. It was deliberate, there was intent and if McCaw hadn't had the fortune to have his head between some Irish thighs it could have had nasty consequences had it connected with his nose or a temple.

Here's a replay [also, I love the Irish call "If there's gonna be a fight you can be pretty sure that Jimmy Cowan will be in the centre of it somewhere... and there he is"]

As always, leave your thoughts in the comments - and here are highlights for those with hazy memories thanks to Rugbydump, as always.

The sum of the whole is greater than its parts.

Particularly succinct this year, when none of the NZ Super 14 teams looked like holding it together to go the distance. The 'shaky at the start before we lose our best players to injury' Chiefs had appeared to get rid of that apron only to find it was replaced with 'win at the start then lose all our best players to injury'.

Then the 'we'll lose all our games until we have to win them all to have a shot and stage a late-season rally' Blues blew it about half-way through.

The 'mathematical chance' Hurricanes were replaced by the 'You what? The game's 60 minutes through and we're down by 3 tries? Oh well we better start trying then' 2010 squad and the 'MC Hammer' Crusaders became all about 'well we're a young team, in a rebuilding phase'.

Meanwhile the perennial 'young team, in a rebuilding phase' Highlanders shouted their mantra from the rooftops: 'lose our best players to injury, lose all our games before a late season rally, the game's 60 minutes through and we're down by 3 tries? Oh well we may as well give up'.

Let's be honest here. The Bulls and Stormers looked brilliant from the first whistle in 2010, yes? Seconded? Right. Motion carried.

Let's move on. The Tri-Nations is just about a month away and you can bet your bottom dollar that that means an exponential increase in the number of 'the All Blacks are crap, there's no direction, look at South Africa it's like the People's Army marching forward to slaughter our poor All Blacks' articles.

Wasn't last year's team the worst ever? So surely with the number of new players [four] and players out injured this is the absolute bottom-of-the-barrel scraping effort that should convince us all that Robbie Deans was the man for the job, we've been led astray by the NZRTEW and we deserve all we get?

Or maybe - just maybe - we do still have the best team in the world, gathered from five provinces - not two [cough South Africa and to a lesser extent Australia]. We've managed to slot in four new caps and many who haven't cracked double digits yet. We've got a winger coming back after proving himself through the Super 14 [cough toldyouso] and the world's first and second best fullbacks. We have a forward pack that can out-play any in the world on their day, and with their referee.

We have the best loosehead prop in the world [Tialata], the second-best lock combo in the world [Thorn and Donnelly], the best loose forward rotation in the world, the best first-five in the world [Carter], the best centre in the world [Smith] and I've already mentioned the fullbacks.

You know the only thing the 'worst team ever' was missing last year? A first-five who could kick insanely long penalties and dropgoals that no human being should be able to make. That's it. You take Morne out of the Boks side and Donald out of ours and we woulda beasted them.

So maybe this bottom-of-the-barrel 2010 unit isn't gonna be so bad after all.

PS: I could talk about Ireland and Wales, since this team is playing them first - but what's the point? They're not those cheating Frenchies so they won't beat us. Also, no-one in the UK will be talking about them either 'cause there's something more meaningful going on.

2010 All Blacks Squad: [June Internationals]

Anthony Boric North Harbour (13)
Aled de Malmanche Waikato (2)
Tom Donnelly Otago (6)
Ben Franks Tasman (uncapped)
Owen Franks Canterbury (9)
Jerome Kaino Auckland (25)
Richie McCaw (capt) Canterbury (80)
Keven Mealamu Auckland (71)
Kieran Read Canterbury (16)
Adam Thomson Otago (15)
Brad Thorn Canterbury (37)
Neemia Tialata Wellington (41)
Victor Vito * Wellington
Tony Woodcock North Harbour (61)

Backs:

Daniel Carter Canterbury (66)
Jimmy Cowan Southland (33)
Aaron Cruden * Manawatu
Israel Dagg * Hawke’s Bay
Zac Guildford Hawke’s Bay (2)
Cory Jane Wellington (12)
Richard Kahui Waikato (8)
Mils Muliaina Waikato (82)
Josevata Rokocoko Auckland (60)
Conrad Smith Wellington (33)
Benson Stanley * Auckland
Piri Weepu Wellington (35)

Sione Lauaki: Sup dox?

Ian Foster: Sione! You're late. Now that you're captain you can't do shit like this.

Sione: Sorry dox! I was watching this new video on my computer. 'Cause I didn't get a new phone from Telecom last year 'cause I wasn't in the All Blacks! That's pretty stink. But the video's got LaDanian Tomlinson in it. I reckon we should base our offense on it this year!

*Breaks into song*

SL style electric gliiiide

*Drops ball, knocks it on*

Foster: Good, you haven't tried to improve your gameplay over summer. Right. I've called you all here to talk about the upcoming pre-season Super 14 match against the Highlanders piss trip. I've already spoken to them, and they've agreed to bootleg us some moonshine. So we're all good on that front. Now we've just got to sort out a gameplan.

Richard Kahui: No sweat Fozzy Bear. We've got it all sussed out. They can come out with me, 'cause then it'll make them all look hotter and they can get the wimmin I don't want. 'Cept for Tim Boys, 'cause he'll fit right in anyway.

Foster: Awesome, great to know you've got your priorities right. Everyone chop one back now!

*Whole team sculls a can of Waikato Draught*

Fantastic. I don't see why people question our pre-season routine every year when we get injuries. Alright boys, chant time. On three, fuck them up.

1, 2, 3.

Whole team: Fuck them up!