In the last 15 minutes at Eden Park the crowd at last warmed to the home team. It was the first time in their three Tests this season that there was any sign of positive interaction between the All Blacks and their hugely demanding public. The eventual fall guys in this were the Irish. They came out here for a two-Test series, which, but for its brevity, would have been dubbed the Tour to Hell. Purgatory seemed more appropriate in the circumstances leading up to departure three weeks ago; yet in truth the pain only set in late in the day. The problem with playing the All Blacks is that, when the wheels look like they might buckle, they come off instead, and fast.
All of this allowed the home team to luxuriate in analysis rather than fending off the incessant whining that has followed their performances these past few weeks. But for some extraordinary latitude afforded them, first by referee Tappe Henning and then by the tourists themselves, we might have witnessed the best whine kept till last.
Indeed, the tourists have been extraordinarily accommodating over the two games. Although it hardly raised a whimper in the post-match comments, the shooting stats of Ronan O'Gara again were a critical factor. The trend was as follows: Henning, who in the preamble declared himself content with Ireland's contest for loose ball in the first Test, suddenly found cause for complaint. Either Ireland departed radically from the script that had served them so well up to that point - which would have been both strange and unnecessary - or Tappe is a fickle kind of guy.
The effect had a huge impact on the game and was acknowledged as such by both camps. When you surrender penalties, so do you lose control, and without that Ireland were in the manure business. When next your goalkicker fails with each of four attempts, then you have passed the point of no return. For Ireland this did not arrive until the final quarter, but when it came it was with all the force of the wind and rain that battered Auckland for three days prior to yesterday.
Initially the scene in Eden Park was like a reprise of Dunedin a week ago. The All Blacks were putting down more ball than is acceptable in this country, and it started in the first quarter by the end of which they had dropped five and were pulled up for one forward pass. And for the Irish the theme tune was the goalkickers' lament.
Three minutes after Andrew Mehrtens had given his team a 6-3 lead, O'Gara pushed a penalty shot wide from inside 30 metres. Given how hard Ireland had to work for their first score - again like last week it was through a Brian O'Driscoll dropped goal - this was a damaging blow. Already the penalty trend had been established, with mostly breakdown infringements leaving the Irish seven down on the whistle count in the first 26 minutes.
So, despite a scrummage that was sound and with a line-out that hardly warranted counting given that the All Blacks had all the throws, this was a case of grab every opportunity on offer. Unfortunately it was O'Driscoll who next couldn't grab the chance to bury Aaron Mauger, and when on 36 minutes he bought the centre's dummy to Mehrtens the damage was done. Mauger accelerated at phenomenal speed and put Leon MacDonald over for the game's first try.
Before the break, however, Ireland had another two penalty chances - the first of which was straightforward. Greg Somerville was penalised for boring in at a scrum in highly kickable range but, as with his first effort, O'Gara pushed the ball right and wide. There was another chance with the last play of the half, but it was from distance and under the circumstances it might have been wiser to offer it to Girvan Dempsey, one of the few players able to get any distance from the hated Adidas ball.
In any case Ireland had mental problems as well as tactical ones to sort out. Unlike Mehrtens, who is the master of aerial ping pong, some of Ireland's kicking out of hand was purely defensive when it didn't have to be. With MacDonald looking uncomfortable when the ball was on the greasy ground, putting it out of play should have been the last resort.
So the All Blacks went in 10-3 up at half-time and felt that with the ruck ball quickening up it would only be a matter of time before the rest of their game fell into place. Shaking this confidence would have required an immediate impact from Ireland on the restart. Having endured a first half of measured frustration, however, the second half developed into one of fairly frantic rearguard action.
From the outset it was the All Blacks who had the territory. Moreover, they had the moves out wide to take advantage of it. From a line-out 30 metres from the Irish line they used Mark Robinson as the obstructive decoy with Jonah Lomu steaming across from his unfamiliar right wing. It quickly turned into an extra man out wide and MacDonald put Caleb Ralph over in the corner.
We had more than half an hour left to play from that point but at 16-3 down the result looked solid. Mehrtens made sure of it with another penalty, and after that it was show time. It will be some consolation to Geordan Murphy that his footwork was as good as anything New Zealand had to offer in the extravaganza, and a lovely break by the Leicester wing set up the territory from which the battling Gary Longwell forced his way over for a try that went unconverted.
But it was a blip. Finally New Zealand sprung Byron Keller from the bench, and while he may not be the best decision-maker on the planet he couldn't go wrong behind an increasingly dominant pack. He scored within a minute of coming on, and thereafter the traffic off the sideline matched that on the scoreboard. Ireland's plight wasn't helped by replacement Alan Quinlan being sent to the sin bin for nasty footwork before he had got his second wind. It looked like his life was passing before him as Henning rooted through his pocket to find the right-coloured card. Quinlan got back on in time for the final whistle. It may have salved his frustration somewhat but collectively the mood wasn't lightened.
New Zealand now prepare for the next hurdle on their Tri Nations warm-up, against Fiji. After a series that promised and then deceived, the Irish are heading on holiday.
New Zealand: MacDonald; Ralph (Howlett 68), Robinson (Gibson 70), Mauger, Lomu; Mehrtens, Marshall (Kelleher 66); Hewett (McDonnell 66), Hammett, Somerville, Jack, Maxwell, Thorne (capt), McCaw (Holah 70; Maling 83), Robertson.
Ireland: Dempsey; Murphy, O'Driscoll, Kelly, Bishop; O'Gara (Humphreys 68), Stringer; Corrigan (Wallace 76), Wood (capt; Byrne 83), Hayes, Longwell, O'Kelly (Cullen 74), Easterby, Gleeson (Quinlan 70), Foley.
Referee: T Henning (South African).
Brendan Fanning is rugby correspondent of the Sunday Independent.
