The All Blacks' domestic season is finished and rugby writer Steve Hepburn reviews the All Blacks performance.
Tri-Nations trophy in the cabinet.
Bledisloe Cup tucked away for another year.
A good thrashing of the Poms.
The Irish routinely dealt with.
When one looks at those statistics most New Zealand rugby fans should be roundly satisfied.
Content even, apart from one-eyed staunch Cantabrians.
For all the doom and gloom which surrounded the game prior to the kick off of the 2008 domestic season, the results have certainly been very rosy.
The loss of players overseas has hardly been felt.
Of all the players who have left for the foreign cash - and that is why they leave, nothing more, nothing less - how many of them were really missed?Winger Doug Howlett perhaps.
Maybe halfback Byron Kelleher when our stocks were thin.
Second-five eighth was looming as a problem but Ma'a Nonu did his best.
But guys like the seagulling Chris Jack and stodgy lock Greg Rawlinson have been missed about as much as the Central Vikings.
However, all this talk about rebuilding and a new team from coach Graham Henry has to be taken with a hefty grain of salt.
Looking through the team that ran on to the park last Saturday in Brisbane, who was "new"?
Richard Kahui? Jimmy Cowan? Up front, Jerome Kaino? Brad Thorn maybe?
Most All Black teams of any era have new boys on the block.
Chris Laidlaw went to the United Kingdom in 1963 as a green 19-year-old.
In 1987, John Gallagher and John Drake were relatively new All Blacks.
In 1995, Jonah Lomu, Andrew Mehrtens, and Josh Kronfeld were new men in black.
If anything, that team in 1995 was greener than this present mob, as they had new guys in key areas.
In our key areas this year we had class and experience, and that is why we have a full trophy cabinet.
Carter, McCaw, Muliaina, Williams and Woodcock - the five key men of this All Black side - all have 40 tests or more under their belt.
When the pressure came on this year, such as 5min into the second half of last Saturday's test, those key guys came up with the answers.
Another tool to the win was the way Henry has completely turned his selection policies around.
Thankfully, the days of rotation are behind us.
Nonu started every test this year, while Carter and McCaw lined up in every test for which they were available.
The talk about building depth and having two quality players in every position has disappeared.
The World Cup will take care of itself, and will be won in 2011.
Not two or three years beforehand.
The Springboks were in disarray in 2006, yet just over a year later were the World Cup champions.
If we keep winning and our key men retain their form and stay fit, then the World Cup should be a formality.
The real examination will come if any of our key men get run over by a bus.
As for the end of year Grand Slam tour, who gets picked in a squad likely to number about 35 is anyone's guess.
A bolter from the Air New Zealand Cup will be from the deepest of left field, such is the standard of that competition.
Maybe someone like Stephen Brett, or Hosea Gear, but no-one is standing up and saying "pick me".
As for putting that Cardiff stinker against the French behind us, then the All Blacks have done as much as they can.
What more could they do than win all the trophies up for grabs?
