All Blacks are still a team worth fearing

So that is how the All Blacks used to play. It has been too long. This was like seeing old friends again, or rather, enemies, nightmares, and swarms of black shirts ruthlessly engulfing anyone unfortunate enough to have the ball and be dressed in a different colour.

Sure enough, an angry All Black team is still a thing to fear, no matter how many players shy of a full complement, no matter how many calls for their heads to roll. Australia, so forceful and clinical the week before, were as cowed by the resurgence as anyone. After five wins on the bounce under their new coach, Robbie Deans, the migrant Kiwi, Australia were exposed here as a work in progress. Five wins is a good start by anyone's standards, but this was the first away game they have played under Deans, and it has often been pondered why the geography of a patch of grass can so transform a team's performance.

Many have questioned Australia's set piece over the years, by which they mean the scrum, but here it was their line-out that imploded. After the helter-skelter craziness of last week's encounter – praised and condemned in equal measure for the premium on pace and the lack of structure – here was a game much more traditional in its framework. Ten line-outs last week; this week there were 31.

New Zealand had attracted huge criticism, not least from themselves, for the lack of a kicking game, but they put that right with a vengeance here. Daniel Carter was landing the ball on a six pence, often 50 or 60 metres away, and he received ample support from his team-mates, particularly Jimmy Cowan, whose kicks from the base of ruck and maul were viciously difficult to deal with. The All Blacks backed it up with an excellent performance at the line-out. Their line-out has been almost as suspect as the Australia scrum for a while now, but here they attacked opposition ball with unfamiliar aggression. In the second half they won eight line-outs, six of which were on Australian throw-ins.

Four of the game's five tries – all bar Ma'a Nonu's last-gasp score in the corner for a crucial bonus point that lifts the All Blacks a point clear at the top of the table – stemmed from set pieces, which should keep the ELV sceptics quiet for the time being. The first two came within four minutes of each other just after the 20-minute mark and both were scored by the magnificently unlikely figure of Tony Woodcock. He was scrumming for all he was worth in the build-up to the first but managed to haul himself round to finish off the series of drives at the line that that scrum had precipitated. Then three minutes later he was charging through from a line-out ball tapped down to him by Ali Williams.

That attacking line-out had been incorrectly awarded to New Zealand after a nasty chip to the corner by Cowan was fielded by Adam Ashley-Cooper with one deliberate foot in touch. And Mark Lawrence, the referee, who had an otherwise decent game, was again awarding penalties that are supposed to be free-kicks under the new laws. It's irrelevant for the time being for those in the north – who will not be adopting the law variations pertaining to free-kicks and penalties – but we need some clarity on why penalties can sometimes be awarded for scrummaging offences and players off their feet.

At 18-3 down in the first half, the Wallabies replied with one of their trademark scores. A slick line-out and classical lines of running gave Ashley-Cooper a simple run-in that nevertheless raised questions of the All Blacks' defence. But Australia could raise no more of those. New Zealand dominated even more in the second half. Nonu's first try soon after the break, off a spoiled Australia line-out, took them further out of sight, and it was just a question of whether and when they were going to secure the bonus point. It looked as if it might pass them by, until Nonu was sent haring for the line from a turnover in the dying seconds. In Lote Tuqiri's despairing tackle, Nonu's fingertips secured just enough purchase on the ball to satisfy the video referee.

The bonus point edges the All Blacks clear of the field for now, but the sheer relief at this resurrection will render that little more than a detail in the nation's review. They travel next to Cape Town to take on the world champions in a fortnight. Win there and we'll really wonder what all the fuss was about.

New Zealand Muliaina; Kahui (Donald 75), Smith (Tuitavake 69), Nonu, Sivivatu; Carter, Cowan (Weepu 74); Woodcock, Hore (Mealamu 67), Somerville (Afoa 59), Thorn (Boric 79), Williams, Kaino (Thomson 75), McCaw (capt), So'oialo

Tries: Woodcock 2, Nonu 2 Conversions: Carter 2 Penalties: Carter 5

Australia Ashely-Cooper (Mitchell ht); Hynes, Mortlock (capt), Barnes (Cross 75), Tuqiri; Giteau, Burgess; Robinson, Moore (Polota-Nau 52), Baxter, Horwill, Sharpe (Vickerman 52), Waugh (McMeniman 59), Smith, Palu

Try: Ashley-Cooper Conversion: Giteau Penalty: Giteau

Referee: M Lawrence (South Africa)

Man of the match: Ali Williams Tony Woodcock was having the time of his life in the first half, but it was asking a lot of a prop to keep that going. Williams, though, was all over the Aussies from start to finish.