NEW ZEALAND started their 2008 Grand Slam campaign with a second-string side winning 32-6 in Scotland. They completed the job with an identical scoreline against England. Between those convincing margins was a 22-3 victory in Ireland and a 29-9 triumph against the best of Europe, Wales.

A third Grand Slam for the tourists without a try conceded, a Grand Slam in which no side managed a point against them until Delon Armitage kicked his second-half penalty; three points conceded in 160 minutes. We may not be at the top of our game in this hemisphere but these are staggering facts.

For all the class of Dan Carter, for all the incision and invention of the back three, the trademark of this side is their defence, power and fitness. There have been greater New Zealand attacking teams in recent years but there has never been such a parsimonious and proud bunch of guys when defending their line.

It is a team in the image of their captain, Richie McCaw, surely the most influential player on the planet. He leads his team into the battle of the breakdown and rare is the time he takes a backwards step. Wales and Martyn Williams harried him for 40 minutes last week but, as McCaw said after the game yesterday, “this is an 80-minute game”.

To live with McCaw and New Zealand at the breakdown is to put everything and more into the contact situation. England threw so much at the All Blacks in the first hour that they failed to maintain any form of discipline and killed their hopes with three justifiable yellow cards to go with a savagely harsh one for Toby Flood.

England slowed New Zealand down but in the process, like Wales, Scotland and Ireland before them, they wore themselves to a frazzle. Playing this team is like trying to run through a brick wall. Nothing is given away and in the end the heroic madness of the attempt takes its toll. So it has been in every game of this Grand Slam tour.

Be it 40 minutes of 60 minutes, there has come a time when the British and Irish opposition have clearly run out of puff and Ma’a Nonu, Mils Muliani and friends have run amok. Had New Zealand not showboated in the last 10 minutes yestereday, the visitors might even have eclipsed last week’s record defeat. Some will take consolation and say the final score was not a reflection of the true margin of difference between the sides but they would be deluding themselves. Tries in the 80th minute against Wales are just as valid as scores in the first half.

The sheer intensity and power of the first hour play their part every bit as much in the crumbling of the opposition defence as does the lightning-quick feet of a three quarter. This is where New Zealand have improved so dramatically in the past year or so. In Cardiff, France checked their freewheeling brilliance and panic set in. Had the same situation confronted them in the past month, the All Blacks’ sheer graft would have left even the legs of men such as Thierry Dusautoir leaden. Capable of producing the most beautiful poetic rugby on the planet, the magic is, however, now the icing and not the cake.

This is a Grand Slam team who have also slammed all their opponents at an area we have already touched upon, the point of contact. Not only are New Zealand aggressive, they are technically excellent. Wales were the only opponent who lived with them in this aspect of the game. New Zealand look to win attacking ball, England still fail to comprehend that a team have to gamble to win such ball. In the process, All Blacks hit the breakdown faster, in greater numbers and with more determination to win usable ball. Yesterday it was the critical difference between the teams.

Before kick-off Alain Rolland told me he would be far more sympathetic towards teams trying to be constructive rather than destructive at the breakdown. England’s catalogue of penalties was a direct result of their inability to plunge into the maelstrom of the contact with positive intent.

New Zealand bruise and the British and Irish are bruised at the breakdown. One team come on strong in the final 20 minutes and the other feel their wounds. That is the essence of this team. Organised and unyielding until the scent of weakening reaches their nostrils; then they are deadly. There have been prettier New Zealand Grand Slam teams but none more powerful.

Kiwi slams

- It may be schoolboy reminiscing but the memory of Graham Mourie’s captaincy and Dave Loveridge’s pass in 1978 makes me rate that team the best v Ireland 10-6 v Wales 13-12 v England 16-6 v Scotland 18-9

- Tana Umaga’s 2005 team were more of an object of desire for romantics but lacked physical presence and the killer finish v Wales 41-3 v Ireland 45-7 v England 23-19 v Scotland 29-10

- For brutal efficiency the 2008 crew merit second place among the Slammers v Scotland 32-6 v Ireland 22-3 v Wales 29-9 v England 32-6