OPINION: Any time the All Blacks lose, a nation mourns.
The day just becomes a little darker and the simplest of tasks becomes a little more difficult.
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But if our national rugby team must lose to anyone, please let it be Ireland, a nation as passionate about the game as we are.
They'll be downing Guinness to celebrate in Dublin tonight, but before you start drowning your sorrows this Sunday morning, here are some of the key points to consider from this historic 16-9 result.
Haka respect
The All Blacks showed they were up for this game with their choice of Kapa O Pango for the second consecutive week. They seem to reserve this pre-game ritual for their toughest opponents, and they rarely lose when they perform it.
But the Irish paid respect to the haka by taking a couple of steps forward, showing they were ready to accept the challenge. This is how opponents should react and it showed the intent Ireland would bring once the whistle blew.
Discipline
The tone of this test was set in the opening possessions when both sides pounded each other with 10-plus phases of attack. The key difference was a lack of discipline from the All Blacks.
Through the first five possessions, four of them ended in penalties against New Zealand, which allowed Ireland to either relieve pressure from defence or build pressure on attack. The fifth was an All Blacks turnover.
By half-time, the penalty count was 9-2, and the visitors were operating under threat of a yellow card.
Some of these indiscretions were marginal calls at the breakdown, where Ireland's prowess was well known and expected.
But Sam Whitelock's flailing attempt to deflect a pass from well over the offside line was just dumb.
You could argue that last year's Lions series was lost through indiscipline - this was another one that got away.
Key moments
Skipper Kieran Read had a royal opportunity to put his side in front just after half-time, when he charged down Jacob Stockdale's clearing kick and only needed to gather cleanly to put Jack Goodhue away for the game's opening try.
Bending low to gather the ball, he knocked on and the chance was lost.
Four minutes later, Ireland crossed for a five-pointer - ironically, resulting from a Stockdale attacking kick - to grab a decisive 10-point advantage.
Read himself admitted afterwards, the game came down to these moments.
"They took their one or two and we didn't take ours."
North vs South
A particularly churlish member of the northern media drew howls of protest earlier this year, when he cast aspersions on the "softies" of the southern hemisphere rugby - again.
Among his assertions were that the Rugby Championship was the "second division of the global game" behind the Six Nations and Super Rugby's all-conquering Crusaders could not foot it with clubs in the English Premiership.
This result - and the lucky let-off against England last week - will add fuel to that theory.
These end-of-season tours are tough on the southern sides, whose players are running on fumes at the end of a long campaign. Just look how difficult it is for northern sides to bring their best teams south for the June international window.
It's pointless making a sweeping generalisationbased on these results - that's what a World Cup is for.
Ireland top of the pile?
One of the criticisms of the All Blacks through the 24 years they couldn't win a World Cup was that they bullied their opponents in the intervening years, but couldn't convert that supremacy on the big stage.
That undermined their sustained record against the best teams in the world and piled added pressure on them to get the job done every four years.
Ireland may not snatch the top spot on world rankings as a result of this victory, but they will certainly go into next year's tournament with the moral high ground.
Underdog status - if you can call it that - won't necessarily be a bad thing for the All Blacks. They will still face the pressure of defending their crown, but have perhaps shifted the expectation onto the men in green.
They've now seen the best that Ireland can throw at them. How they fare in 12 months' time - assuming they meet the Irish at some point in Japan - will come down to the tactical and personnel adjustments they make in the meantime.
Grant Chapman is Newshub online sports editor.
