So the Grand Slam has been won.
The Poms have gone the same way as those before them.
Really there was only going to be one result, especially when four yellow cards were handed out by referee Alain Rolland, all to guilty Englishmen.
What would have happened had Rolland been in charge of a certain match in Cardiff just under 14 months ago?The yellow cards were fair enough.
Cheats should not prosper, and, thankfully, the English did not.
But England was, as expected, fairly ordinary.
Last week there was a figure thrown about that England has upwards of a million players at its disposal.
Though that number is certainly inflated, even if it was half that, then the English should be doing better.
But how many of those thousands and thousands who are chasing pig leather in England actually play serious com-petitive rugby?Going for a run round the block doesn't make you an Olympic athlete.
And neither does playing 30 minutes of sub-standard, third-rate footy every Saturday and then drinking 10 pints of lager in the clubrooms afterwards turn you into an international-class rugby player.
England's pool of rugby talent may be the biggest in the world but there is plenty of lard floating in that pool.
New England manager Martin Johnson has a mountain of work to do if he wants to get his team up to speed.
But do the Home Nations really care that much about these autumn internationals?Come February, the Six Nations will crank up and all will be forgotten.
The All Blacks may call it a Grand Slam but the Home Nations may tend to view these internationals as warm-ups for the main event.
Pity, that, because all it does is devalue the worthiness of the contest.
th Dan Carter and Richie McCaw are the big stars of the All Black team but is there anyone more reliable in the side than fullback Mils Muliaina?When the All Blacks were under pressure in the match against Munster, who did coach Graham Henry send on to try and find a way through the defence ?It was Muliaina who fed the last pass to winger Joe Rokocoko to win the game.
Muliaina is a top footballer, who rarely does anything wrong.
He was all class yesterday and fully deserved his two tries, which he made look very easy.
He is streets ahead of any other fullback in New Zealand.
Pity, for Highlanders fans, he left Southland all those years ago.
So many words have been written about the haka in this tour.
But does it actually help the All Blacks ?In all the tests over the past month, the All Blacks have been slow to start.
In the Irish test, they started reasonably well, but in all the others, it has taken until the second half for the All Blacks to get into gear.
So many opponents of the haka say it should be banned as it motivates and fires up the All Blacks.
But on this tour the opposite has happened.
The opposition have been quick out of the blocks.
Oh for the days, when two sides simply ran on to the field, and the game promptly kicked off.
Star player: Jimmy Cowan showed he can run and managed to get the ball away quickly enough despite the cheating going on around him.
Question: Is rugby a year-round game? The Highlanders start training for 2009 today.
