IN THE end, class prevailed. In the end, Daniel Carter stopped slicing his kicks and starting driving his team up the field with low booming strikes through the southerly winds. In the end, he was too much for Ireland as he slid, in the 63rd minute, through a needle’s eye gap, breaking the first line of an Ireland defence otherwise obdurate. It ended with Ma’a Nonu hitting the line hard off replacement John Schwalger and squelching over to open a lead of 10 points which on this most savage of nights was the final exclamation mark.

Class is permanent, which is just as well for the fly-half because he wore a decidedly unconvincing cloak of greatness for the first hour of this game. He seems to reflect the All Blacks themselves; shimmering and unstoppable through 2005 and 2006, his form and that of his team dipped in the lead-up to and during the World Cup in 2007. Undermined by injuries since, he has failed to convince any bar the most profligate of French clubs that he has managed to maintain the magical form of that Lions tour.

His was the defining moment of magic that illuminated the darkest of evenings; it was proof of his genius even as the match itself was proof that the emperor of world rugby is occasionally to be seen metaphorically wandering around in nothing but the underwear he models as a highly profitable sideline. If Carter is to fulfil his vast potential, some hard-edged New Zealanders need to remind him that, exciting as an astronomical euro salary may be, he needs to concentrate on his game in a way that the form of the past 12 months suggests he has not.

He is a class act, but class and greatness are not one and the same. His performance in 2005 against the Lions here was one of the greatest in the 35 years in which I have been involved in this sport. It seemed the harbinger of greatness as his mantle. One break and a thoroughly professional last quarter after the turmoil of his first hour is a fascinating reminder of good he can be, and also how far he is from greatness.

As for the All Blacks, it is difficult to judge them on the evidence of their first outing since the quarter-final defeat because of the atrocity of conditions. What cannot be doubted is the dynamism of their forward play. They adapted superbly to the deluge and took complete control of possession from a predominantly Munster pack that had squeezed the rugby from Tou-louse in the Heineken Cup final. The pick and drive was the obvious option for a team with the power and pace to make ground nearly every time they picked possession.

Pace is the secret. Even great lumps like Neemia Tialata, John Afoa and Schwalger have an explosive burst that takes them forward through the initial contact. Conversely, when Ireland went in search of their own metres here and there, the speed of movement into that contact slammed them backwards.

It is a facet of Kiwi forward play that extends to the tight. In the scrum, they smash into the contact harder and faster than any other front row and in the lineout everything is done at speed. To see the rapid lifting of a heavy-boned flanker like Rod-ney So’oialo as he terrorised the Ireland lineout with real fluidity was to see clinical efficiency.

It was highly impressive, but surely in better conditions they-will use their backs more frequently. Or will they? Maybe, if the sun shines in Auckland, they will change next to nothing against England. They are so powerful in the tight exchanges, so slick at the set piece, that they have forgotten how skilled they are in other areas. Maybe that is the reason why Carter stands so much deeper than he did in 2005, when the pack was evolving towards this almost perfect but predictable peak. When a team is predictable, almost perfect is sometimes not enough. It is a lesson they need to learn.