Brumbieman
Dick Tooth (41)
We played fairly well in that game, though it was a bit rusty at times. If I recall correctly we scored two masterful set piece tries and got bitten by a few refereeing decisions that were not necessarily wrong, but different to what we were used to (where we drove past the ball at a ruck so that the whole thing collapsed and got pinged) . IIRC the game result was not in serious doubt from about the 20th minute onwards.
It is very rare that the All Blacks put on spectacular performances one after the other;even in the supposedly glory days of 1996 we were lucky to win in Brisbane v AUS and in Christchurch v SA - and that team is regarded by many as the finest All Black team ever.
I take your point that 2012 was not exactly a stellar year for international rugby, but don't denigrate what was a very good All Black team last year. Our Super teams have been fairly average again this year, but our top 15 look in pretty good nick right now. Link might do better than Deans did last year, but I don't know if that is a fait accompli.
I think you've gotten your years and games mixed up mate. The first Bledisloe last year, Beale had a shocker, Barnes was terrible, the backline was pathetic and we were well and truly trounced, by a disjointed and seemingly uninterested AB team.