Wallace Sititi. Photo: Evan Denworth / www.photosport.nz
Job done. That's a feeling that Scott Robertson's All Blacks will be wanting to get used to, and they can fly home from San Diego knowing that they got what they needed in their 47-5 win over Fiji.
Robertson had rolled the changes after the series win over England, and that was tense enough to have raised a few eyebrows at this cleanout.
But this was an All Black performance that justified Robertson keeping his new squad members on the side-line until this fixture. Cortez Ratima was the only new cap against England and that was only because of TJ Perenara's injury, so the six new players who took the field against Fiji probably felt a great deal less stress.
Billy Proctor was the only one in the starting side and his combination with Anton Lienert-Brown was probably the most anticipated aspect of the selection, and it's fair to say he walked off the park with his reputation well enhanced.
Billy Proctor. Photo: Evan Denworth / www.photosport.nz
Lienert-Brown was just as consistent as ever, carrying the ball well into contact from his first touch to his last, so it sets up an intriguing conversation about the midfield going forward. Yes, the Fijian defence wasn't anywhere near the sort of pressure England were putting on, but the two complemented each other too well to just put down to a bit more space.
While Noah Hotham got in an All Black side about a season before he thought, he ended up on the field sooner than expected as well. The only downside was an injury to Ratima, who at least scored a try before landing heavily on the very hard SnapDragon Stadium surface. However, given there are another three weeks till the next test, it's likely he will be fully available for selection anyway.
Nothing really changed when Hotham came on, he and Ratima offer a very similar game in terms of pass/run balance, so the tempo the All Blacks wanted to play at remained high.
George Bell and Pasilio Tosi were gifted a well-beaten Fijian pack to scrum against when they came on, but both men were impressive in open play as the game opened up. Tosi played a nice role in Ethan de Groot's try and Bell bagged one of his own, so definite ticks in the positive column for them.
Pasilio Tosi. Photo: Evan Denworth / www.photosport.nz
Wallace Sititi has the unenviable task of sitting behind Ardie Savea in the pecking order no matter what he does, but he made every touch a good one despite coming on when the result was well and truly settled. Sam Darry also made a compelling case with some strong work at the breakdown that yielded a couple of penalties, but both he and Sititi will need to get some game time against the Pumas to really assess their readiness for test rugby.
Really though, the big winner was the concept of taking home games offshore. Yes, the American adventure is not new for the All Blacks but this game in San Diego felt about a hundred times better than when they played the USA in a horrible mismatch three years ago.
SnapDragon Stadium looked great and drew in a very impressive 33,217 crowd that all looked like they were having a great time. Saturday afternoon at the business end of club rugby season wasn't the best of times to kick off, but NZ Rugby have been upfront about this fixture being about taking the brand to an appreciative market and you'd have to say it worked - the flyover by a couple of F22 fighters from a nearby US Air Force base was a uniquely American touch.
An Air Force flyover at the San Diego game. Photo: Evan Denworth / www.photosport.nz
Does this mean we're going to see more games stateside, perhaps even a Rugby Championship fixture in the near future? You'd have to think so, given the original draft plan for this fixture was to play Argentina in Miami.
One thing's for sure though: they need to vet who is singing the national anthem a little better, the rendition of God Defend New Zealand pre-match was best described as god-awful and was only salvaged by a passionate haka led by Ardie Savea for the first time.
To be fair, it's been a rough week for anthem singers in the US (where Ingrid Andress checked into rehab after admitting to singing the anthem drunk at a Major League Baseball game), and the New Zealand version has a rough track record there anyway. If that's the only thing worth complaining about, this San Diego trip was probably well worth it.
