Or at least they didn’t get the job done the way they hoped – thanks to a performance defined by its cohesion, precision and class that would have allowed the All Blacks to leave behind the freezing cold of the European winter with a little jump in their step and warmth in their soul.

Instead, they return to New Zealand after a disappointing 80 minutes, during which they were riddled with errors, unable to bend or break a resilient Italian defense and guilty of being dragged down to the level of their inferior team. ranked opponent.

THE Score 29-11 could be used to argue that the coaching group was right to respect Italy as much as they did and pick their best team, but the more compelling argument is that of the All Blacks, through a series of unforced errors, lack of concentration and cowardly decisions. -making, created the illusion that the two sides were much closer in terms of capabilities than they are.

Apart from the All Blacks scrum, which was destructive and relentless and above all rewarded as it deserved, it was a performance which did not succeed in exorcising the demons which appeared last week in Paris, and which certainly did not created a heightened sense of this being a team inexorably on the rise.

A prolonged failure against an ordinary Italian team, right after France’s failure, cast the season of 10 wins in 14 tests in a different light.

It’s difficult today to say with any sense of confidence or authority that the All Blacks know how to piece together all the different components of their game, and how to think and fight their way through 80 minutes against any opponent.

A team that started the year against England a little uncertain in the headlights, a little ragged, frantic and frayed around the edges, ended the year in similar fashion against Italy.

The lineout was a little shaky, the ball protection in the ruck was nowhere near as secure as it should have been, and for the third test in a row Cam Roigard had to deal with arms and legs and to lost defenders who shouted at him. as he tried to recover the ball.

The repeated problems never fit well into the middle of the progress narrative, and the biggest disappointment for the coaching staff would have been the lack of cohesion and the inability of established combinations to justify why they were being thrown in for a final hurray and are not left to their own devices. stay warm in the stands to leave room for a little experimentation.

There was simply no flow or cohesion to anything the All Blacks did, and although they scrummed superbly, they were unable to take full advantage of their superiority and convert their pressure into points .

It was a messy, very messy performance, and one that over time the coaching group may come to view as a source of regret – for not taking advantage of the opportunity to inject a few new faces, raise the levels energy and answer a question. some questions about whether some fringe players are ready to play at this level.

It is possible, almost likely, that at the heart of the All Blacks’ underperformance is an undetected level of fatigue.

Typically, their body positions were a little too high in collision zones. They lacked urgency and ruthlessness in clearing, and when half-breaks were made, too often the supporting runners failed to reach the ball carrier quickly enough.

It all looked a little tired, as if there was a collective lack of pep in the legs and a bit of the brain fog that inevitably comes at the end of a long and difficult season. This was perhaps unsurprising, as most of the starters were playing their fourth consecutive Test – Wallace Sititi was playing his fifth – and previous All Blacks coaching regimes felt that three consecutive stints was the most the players could manage before their performance drops.

What Robertson might conclude, given time, is that he asked for too much and they simply didn’t have enough juice left in the tank to put out a breathtaking performance.

“That wasn’t the energy we wanted to have in a game like that,” he said. “Not against a passionate and tough Italian team who put a lot of pressure on us and kept improving throughout the match.

“We did everything we could to get here. We sent a strong team because we knew how difficult it was going to be. We knew (with) the Italians, on a field 65 m wide and a little dew, that the contact was going to be intense.