McCaw now is a totemic player, a lightning rod that galvinizes those around him and gives their own games a purpose and focus sorely missing when he is not there. It's not just that he's being more assertive with the referee. It's that now he seems to have grasped that his value to the All Blacks is beyond the technical. This realisation is clearly not an ego thing. Indeed, if you were of a spiritual bent, you would say he has begun to consciously and physically embody all the virtues implicit in the symbols of the silver fern and the black shirt.

The most wonderful thing is that his now self-recognised totemic power seems to have enfused the entire team. While clearly not the most gifted of All Black squads (save for McCaw and Carter), the men who turned out in black in the last two games in Auckland and Capetown have played with a quiet, ruthless and unyielding efficiency that to my mind harks back to the great All Black sides of history.

One hopes that they have finally realised that the greatness of the All Black tradition is not in flashy spectacle, circus tricks and a desire to entertain, but in a remorseless capacity for absorbing pressure and using that energy to strangle the opposition out of the game. The irony is that by playing within themselves and executing in a patient, focused fashion, they are unleashing powers that hitherto were not evident.

It is a wonder to behold. And we have to thank for it Richie's sabbatical.