The Wallabies' capitulation against South Africa only serves to highlight the power of the mind in international rugby, All Blacks coach Graham Henry says.
Preparing his team for what should be a comfortable defeat of Samoa in their one-off Test on Wednesday, Henry said the match would serve as a good physical hit-out for his team 10 days from the decisive Tri-Nations Test against the scarred Wallabies in Brisbane.
Henry had tipped an Australian win at Johannesburg to follow their historic victory at Durban a week earlier so he was utterly surprised at the Springboks' record 53-8 winning margin at thr weekend.
However, attitude was something that could never easily be predicted, he said.
"Obviously the Springboks were right on the edge, and the Australians weren't," Henry said today.
"You've got the world champions, and they were desperate, and you've got the other guys coming off their first win in a major fixture overseas for a while.
"When you've got rugby of that nature, of that quality, if one side's there and the other side isn't, it makes a huge difference to the result."
Wallabies coach Robbie Deans had rested players for the second match, including world class flanker George Smith, suggesting he at least partly had Brisbane on his mind.
While the result was an anomaly, Henry said footage of the Ellis Park massacre wouldn't be ignored when he plotted his tactics for the September 13 Tri-Nations finale.
"There's always something of relevance."
Veteran All Blacks prop Greg Somerville had no doubt the Wallabies would rebound.
Years of Super rugby success under former Crusaders mentor Deans told Somerville the Australian players were in for two weeks of soul searching, starting with an analysis of what went wrong at Johannesburg.
"I'm not sure what went on that week, but I think he'll make them honest about how they prepared for the whole week and how they went into it," Somerville said.
"He'll screw it right back and I'm sure there won't be any hangover from it.
"He'll wash it all down the toilet and they'll be preparing pretty well for us, I'd say. That'll give them an extra edge."
The Crusaders built their success under Deans around an ability to maintain consistently high standards.
"I can think of a couple of instances where we didn't turn up but overall we were pretty good at playing to the level we expected of ourselves week in and week out," Somerville said.
Consistency wasn't a theme of this year's Tri-Nations, with New Zealand's 39-10 defeat of Australia in Auckland a month ago coming a week after losing 19-34 to the same opponents in Sydney.
"The difference is mental half the time," the 63-test prop said.
"You are going to have your ups and downs but it's a matter of winning those ones when you're not quite on your game.