Winners and Losers from New Zealand's European Tour

Mission accomplished for Steve Hansen and his All Blacks.

New Zealand arrived in Europe with the Rugby Championship already secured for 2014, albeit without the perfect record of the previous season.

They have faced England, Scotland and Wales on consecutive weekends and seen them all off to end their year as the dominant nation in the world.

Pretty much everywhere you look there are two players for each position who would walk into most other international starting XVs and in some there are double that number.

This autumn some of the supporting cast have had their shot, and while we haven't seen a full 80-minute performance from this team, on each occasion the players on the field have done enough to win. They have made us all feel as though the notion that any other outcome had even been a possibility was a fanciful one.

Here are the tour's winners and losers.

Colin Slade was not originally picked to tour with the All Blacks this autumn. But injury to Cory Jane saw him plucked from the Barbarians squad to join his countrymen. He had to slot in on the wing against Scotland before moving into the fly-half berth and helped pilot the team to a victory that they took a while to close out.

He was then called from the bench to open up a stubborn Welsh rearguard in the latter stages of the final Test of the tour in Cardiff.

His performance there and overall impressive tour has left the New Zealand press at least in no doubt that Slade has played himself into next year's World Cup squad.

Patrick McKendry of the New Zealand Herald wrote: "Slade's ability to step up when required, along with his versatility, means he is a shoo-in for the World Cup squad, providing he remains injury free."

The All Blacks No. 2 jersey has been waiting for someone to take it off Keven Mealamu once and for all. Dane Coles might finally have done that in 2014, with the old stager at last reduced to impact sub.

Coles ran strongly with the ball during the autumn and saved his best for last in Cardiff. His appetite for work is impressive, and he makes up for what he lacks in size.

The other side of Coles was not so pleasing. We saw him lose his rag against England and take a trip to the sin bin, then he covered 20 metres to get involved in a round of handbags in Cardiff.

He needs to check his temper at the door, because that short fuse will not have gone unnoticed by the wind-up merchants of the world game, who will be itching to press his buttons in the heat of World Cup warfare.

Aaron Cruden played well against England at Twickenham, scoring his side's first try to get them back in the game after the home side's fast start.

But he made way for Beauden Barrett on the hour mark and that was the last we saw of him on the tour.

Perhaps we should take Steve Hansen at his word when he told the media that this trip was going to be used to assess all options at No. 10 and give everyone game time.

Ask a player what he thinks about that and you'll get a different reply. In a squad as competitive as New Zealand, no man would want to see his jersey taken for fear of never feeling it slide down his back again.

Cruden sat back and watched Dan Carter ease himself back into the chair, then Beauden Barrett give a bravura display in Cardiff, allied to a brilliant cameo from Colin Slade.

Maybe the Chiefs man is so well-trusted by Hansen that he already has his name down for a flight to England next year but seeing your three main rivals all get a turn while you do nothing can't be good for your confidence.

We are living in a post-challenge era as far as the Haka is concerned.

Wales have twice tried their best to subjugate the All Blacks' pre-match war dance, once insisting they did it before the Welsh anthem, which resulted in a strop from the Kiwis who did it in the changing room instead, then standing stock still and staring back as the visitors did their thing.

France, of course, in 2007, replied in the colours of their flag and got up in the faces of their World Cup quarter-final opponents. Then beat them.

But all these ways and means of offering some sort of riposte to a ritual that has gone from noble tradition to a combination of menacing threat and elaborate marketing strategy, seem to have been quelled.

Now you can't so much as sneeze at a leering, salivating All Black while he claps his hands and pretends to slit his throat (or is that your throat?) without the game's governing body coming down on you like a ton of bricks.

When, you have to ask, did the Haka go from this sort of thing seen in the 70s to the managed, threatening performance we see today?

Not only does it all feel a bit commercial but surely it's unfair to allow the All Blacks to use it as such a motivational tool before every game when everyone else just has to stand there and take it?

Keep the Haka, and let them perform it with as much bluster as they can summon. But let everyone else reply in kind should they wish.