Last Friday afternoon, in the foyer of Dublin's Burlington Hotel, Josh Kronfeld was surrounded as usual. There were friendly boys with shining faces and older men bearing darker rugby scars more shyly.

They kept coming, offering him books and posters, shirts and jerseys, even their hands and arms - and rugby ball after rugby ball. He signed everything, answered every question with a little crack.

At last, Kronfeld looked up and saw me. He could tell I had already heard the bad news. I have followed his beloved All Blacks this year, travelling from country to country, city to city, falling for them more and more with every game. I have seen Christian Cullen, Jeff Wilson, Frank Bunce, Sean Fitzpatrick, Ian Jones, Zinzan Brooke and the rest play rugby like never before.

But, whether he's marauding relentlessly across the pitch, his black scrum-cap blazing, or thinking deeply about what it means to be part of this incredible team, Kronfeld has always been my favourite All Black.

He is consistently described as the best loose forward in international rugby. Yet, last Wednesday, Kronfeld was told that his number seven jersey had been handed to another dynamic young flanker, the highly regarded Andrew Blowers, a 23-year-old from Auckland.

Kronfeld is only three years older, near the peak of his career. His hurt at losing the black shirt was almost unbearable. "I'm still in shock," he said softly in Dublin. "I could not believe it when I heard." His voice trailed away.

This was different to the normal scenario of disappointment in sport. There have been no personality clashes or disciplinary measures. The methodical and incisive All Black management under John Hart felt that, at least last week, Blowers was playing fractionally the better rugby. It was as simple and, for Kronfeld, as painful as that.

But, in a moment more moving than any other in this All Black year, he suddenly smiled. "It'll be okay," he promised. "I've just got to get that jersey back. I can't think of anything else; this team means too much to me." Seven days on, Kronfeld has already fulfilled that promise. Tomorrow his performance at Old Trafford will be intense, fuelled by this compelling fervour that drives the All Blacks on, game after game, month after month.

London, February 1997

Sean Fitzpatrick politely taps his thick fingers on the arm of our crushed velvet sofa. The patter of a piano echoes in the distance. Whispering flunkies and high-heel-clicking air hostesses drift across the lobby, flashing the occasional Come Dancing smile in time to the tinkle. Fitzpatrick grins back but, at the same time, his eyes glaze momentarily.

The loop is endless. From Auckland to Brisbane, Cardiff to Dublin, Paris to Pretoria, Fitzpatrick has been doing the blurring two-step since his first overseas tour in 1984. He rubs his ball-throwing hand across his broad face when I ask if he feels he could be anywhere in the world where they play rugby.

"I know what you mean," he murmurs, "but I took a little walk a few hours ago. It was pretty cold and wet and, y'know, it felt like a Monday in London." He laughs easily, suddenly sounding genially sunny on a foul winter night.

Sometimes it's hard to remember the All Blacks used to be known as the Unsmiling Giants. The darkest myths centre around the meanest men in past black packs, around legendary figures like Kevin Skinner and Colin "Pinetree" Meads. They were the bruisers who made even Gareth Edwards admit "there is something about the All Black jersey which sends a shudder through your heart".

Skinner, one of Fitzpatrick's most notorious predecessors in the New Zealand front row of the 1950s, often switched between tight-head and loose-head in order to take care of both opposing props with his considerable punching power. He was New Zealand heavyweight champion in 1947, but his fists earned him a greater reputation in rugby.

Though he threw fewer punches, Meads personified the hard face of All Black rugby even more strikingly. John Gainsford, a South African icon in his own right, recalls the day he tried to cross the huge Kiwi lock. "Meads grabbed hold of both my wrists," Gainsford sighs. "It was like being held by a band of steel. I couldn't move. He looked up and said: `Don't bother, son'." Yet of all the rugged tales which wag the immense body of All-Black folklore, the story of one of their lesser-known tyros in a number eight jersey is perhaps the most startling. During the 1960 trials to pick a team to tour South Africa, Richard Conway was advised that a hand injury would not heal in time for him to be considered for selection.

In desperation, Conway asked the specialist if there was anything they could do to save his place in the team. "There's only one thing that will mend that finger in time," the doctor joked, "and that's amputation." Conway ordered the bewildered doc to get on with it. After much argument the chop came and, missing his offending digit, Conway made the tour. He played in three Tests out of four against the Springboks.

Three All Black caps for one finger? Back in New Zealand it seemed a fair exchange.

Fitzpatrick is too urbane to do anything, but chuckle knowingly at such anecdotes and then talk persuasively of the "imposing legacy" of New Zealand rugby. He says the modern game demands more sophisticated responsibilities.

An All Black was once expected to do no more than pull on the old blazer and a pair of grey trousers and grunt "yup" or "nah" at uneasy journalists. The new breed, however, is obliged to be as slick on the press podium as it is tough in the ruck.

The All Black players, coaches and management have taken the game into a different dimension. Now they blend their usual ferocity and power with pace and skill. Their explosive back line includes Christian Cullen - "the discovery of the decade" - a 21-yearold attacking full-back who last year scored seven tries in his first two internationals.

In 1996, when the All Blacks achieved the ultimate Kiwi dream by winning a series in South Africa, their dominance was built on Fitzpatrick's merciless tight five from Auckland and an extraordinary loose trio in Michael Jones, Kronfeld and Zinzan Brooke.

And because they are as pragmatic in the tight as they are inspired in the loose, they keep on winning by huge margins. To make a glib footballing analogy, they roll the best of Brazil and Germany into one outrageously successful team.

Today's All Blacks are also a PR machine's dream. Whether hammering their rivals on the park or commending them dutifully afterwards, Fitzpatrick's beaming boys can be trusted to do the right thing.

"Yeah," he nods agreeably, "we're paying a lot of attention to our image now. We want to ensure our product becomes the best in the world. The basis will be formidable rugby, but we're striving to improve ourselves off the field, from management strategy down to the look of the brand."

You might guess Fitzpatrick used to work as a part-time consultant for Coca-Cola. Yet for all the marketing speak, his commercial bonhomie would mean nothing without the flame inside. The glowering hooker inside the gleaming man, the squat leader breathing fire through his bellowing pack, continues to fascinate most.

Fitzpatrick is often described privately by rival Test players as "the hardest bastard of them all", and his encounter with the Irish hooker Steve Smith belongs in the Meads black book of tough tales. Smith hit him with "the biggest punch I've ever thrown".

His fist smashed into the All Black's face, instantly drawing blood. Fitzpatrick took out his mouthguard, spat out a couple of teeth, then slipped the shield back between his swollen lips. The stare he shot at Smith, as they prepared to lock heads again, chilled Irish hearts - Smith's most of all.

Fitzpatrick plays down the memory, as he does accusations that he has a sneaky knack of smothering the ball and persuading officials to see most infringements through his eyes. Even the All Black media pack concurs coyly that `international opponents have referred to him as the best referee in the game'.

"Look, we just don't like to lose," he says, more bluntly than usual. "Last year was a great season for New Zealand: Auckland won the Super 12, the All Blacks won the Bledisloe Cup, the Tri-Nations and our first ever series in South Africa. And I think we can play even better this year."

Fitzpatrick also admits that "at the end of last year I felt more shattered than I've ever done. And 1997 is going to be even more arduous. The thought of two Tests against England is daunting. My aim is to play in the 1999 World Cup, but I'll be 37 then. The game is getting harder. I like to think I've got two years left in me, but I'll have a better idea the next time I'm in town."

Pretoria, July 1997

A new scrum-machine glistens in the sunlight. This huge contraption, so silently monstrous only 30 minutes before, has been reduced to a quivering chorus of squeaks and hisses. It's been subjected to a terrible grinding. You cannot miss the deep and wide indentations the three-headed front row has formed in the still-sighing leather cushions.

At almost noon on a Tuesday morning, four days before the All Blacks face the Springboks, Sean Fitzpatrick and his inspirational coach, John Hart, call for yet more bodies to climb aboard the hapless apparatus. Twenty beefy Afrikaans teenagers are already peering uncertainly from its top tiers. Another 10 clamber on, leaving just enough space for two 18-stone forwards from the notorious Pretoria Police to squeeze their way on to the wooden support beams at the back.

The machine creaks sadly as the weight of two and a bit rugby teams bears down. A few feet away, their tops ringed with dark circles of sweat, seven forwards wait for their captain. Fitzpatrick walks back slowly, seemingly lost in a reverie of fatigue.

Hart waves to Justin Marshall, who has just left his yelping backs at the opposite end of the field. They, clearly, are having fun. It's different among the forwards. The only evidence of relief seem to rise up in the copious spitting of phlegm from the back of their dry throats, or in the occasional bellowing burp as yet more water is taken on board.

The pack makes its corner sound like an abattoir rather than a playground. Zinzan Brooke takes charge of the slaughter. Although they have been bending metal for 20 minutes, he is not happy. His language turns the thin high veld air a deeper shade of butcher blue.

"Saturday," he snarls, "we destroy these fuckers up front. We f. . . them from the first scrum. But we've gotta go lower. We can drop a few more inches. In lower, in harder. Let's work this f . . . ing thing."

Fitzpatrick, hanging loosely on his props Olo Brown and Craig Dowd, tightens his grip. These three have linked arms in more than 35 Tests - and a hundred odd games for Auckland. Their ritual is unchanging. They eyeball the metal monster calmly before digging in their heels, preparing for the strain.

The heads of two locks sprout suddenly between the trio's trunk-like legs. Ian Jones and Robin Brooke have already broken the world record for Tests together as a line-out partnership. By the end of the year they will have locked the New Zealand scrum for the 40th time.

The loose forwards - Josh Kronfeld, an eerily serene Taine Randell and the great Zinzan - settle down on the side and at the back of the scrum. At Marshall's feint with the ball the eight men smash into the machine.

From his crouch, Hart can see that the sweat on each man's nose needs to fall only a few inches before it hits dirt. But Zinzan barks "lower, lower". The black octopus flattens and squeezes itself into a gravity defying horizontal plane. The machine skids back, helpless against such a well-oiled concertina of pressure.

Marshall allows them respite after 30 seconds. There is an almost hysterical laugh from one of the big Pretoria props when he cranes his head round and sees how far they have been shoved.

"Good scrum," Hart shouts. "Twenty-nine to go." And back and forth they push, bulldozing the machine from one wing to the other.

One day, their twisted bodies will remind these men of such mornings. Hart is delighted, but he tells me the hard yellow grass is too dry, making it easier to propel a machine pinned down by a force of 32. "The Springboks will be a bigger task in the scrum," he grins cheerfully. "This is the biggest challenge the All Blacks have faced. I don't think any side has ever been asked to overcome the odds we face.

"On Saturday we play the Springboks at Ellis Park. The pressure will be tremendous. Then, just seven days later, we fly to Melbourne and face Australia before a 100,000 crowd. We're playing our two arch-rivals on successive Saturdays. And yet we've got to fly across God knows how many time zones and thousands of miles. It's ridiculous. It's too much too ask." He pauses, stroking his chin, before adding the expected All Black rider. "But, with this team, you never know. We're trying for the impossible."

Hart's steely grip on New Zealand rugby makes it strange to remember that it once seemed as if he would never coach the national team. He was derided as "too clever for his own good" by some of the committee blazers.

Hart suggested, less than four years ago, he was on the verge of abandoning coaching. But, after the shock World Cup loss to South Africa in 1995, he finally took over. He now leads a team that may yet emerge as the best of all time.

Like Carwyn James, Hart has an extraordinary ability to make the complex seem simple. His consistent message is that you do not have to do everything differently to be the world's best, you only need do it better.

He also appears able to pick the right player at just the right time. The 22-year-old Randell, for instance, was this year deemed good enough by Hart to replace Michael Jones, who was to many connoisseurs the finest rugby player of all time. And yet Randell, in only a couple of internationals, has proved himself a consummate conductor of the traditional All Black strengths in the back row. He can play in all three positions and seems assured of his role as the long-term successor to Fitzpatrick as captain.

As the players begin their last hour of work for the day, with the forwards linking once more with the backs, Hart's most impressive attribute emerges. He mixes the most grizzled All Blacks with the greenest members of his squad, dividing them into small groups that blur the differences between age and experience. As the likes of Fitzpatrick, Brooke and Bunce join in with as much gusto as the 21-year-olds, it again seems ironic to compare this whooping black band with its scowling predecessors.

Fitzpatrick used to dread training when he was 20 and on the fringe of the Auckland team. Andy Haden, the All Black lock, refused to excuse youthful imperfections. "He was really hard on me," Fitzpatrick says. "If I threw in poorly, he was at me. He'd stop training and say: `No, that's not right'. Sometimes he drew a sketch of what he wanted in front of the whole team. I felt so small."

The cruellest humiliation occurred on tour when, in the midst of training, Fitzpatrick threw three misguided line-out balls. "Get out of here!" Haden yelled, refusing to train until Fitzpatrick had left the pitch, knowing he had been dropped from the team.

"It was one hell of a learning curve," Fitzpatrick admits ruefully. "I now regard it as a lesson in how not to treat young players. But it was how the old brigade operated."

An hour after training, looking as if they have just woken from a long lie-in, two of the new brigade drift over for another "bit of a yarn". For Kronfeld, as astute as Christian Cullen is affable, the grim old days are hard to believe.

"It's very different being an All Black today," Kronfeld says as he and Cullen stretch out in the hotel garden. "We're the beneficiaries of so many positive changes. It helps the younger guys when they see legends like Zinny and Fitzy walking beside them, encouraging them, thinking about the game constantly. They're incredibly supportive but they won't let us get complacent. You saw how competitive we were this morning. It was ferocious stuff."

Kronfeld nods at his brilliant full-back. "Cullie looks laid-back, but he's got the All Black heart beating deep inside. If he ever gets round to having a bad game, he'll be the first one to say it. And out on the training pitch he knows I'm going to nail him every chance I get, just to prove it's possible to stop him.

"The atmosphere between all of us has that special kind of edge. But I honestly think that the reason we're getting a lot of praise is that the network of New Zealand rugby has been beautifully set up. It's easy for us to perform because everything is taken care of for us."

"Yeah," Cullen drawls lazily, sounding like the least anxious man in the world. "All we've got to worry about is going out there, training and then playing. It's great." "If you start with Christian at full-back," Kronfeld says, "you're starting with a rare talent. Jeez, I don't think even he knows what he's going to do half the time. He sees things the rest of us never see. He takes gaps that hardly exist, and how he does it I'll never know. I just wish he'd pass the ball to me a bit more."

"Hey," Cullen exclaims, "whenever I look over my shoulder he's the first one I always see. Whenever you get tackled he's the first one to win the ball back. He's a bit of a leech really." "Well," Kronfeld grins slyly, "maybe the backs take it for granted our pack is going to be moving forward all the time. But, being a little closer to the action, I marvel at our tight five. They're incredible.

"It'll be a tough task for us to stay unbeaten, but there's a helluva lot of guys in our side who would make it into any world team you'd care to pick. I'm just lucky enough to be playing alongside them."

London, October 1997

When they arrive in England they're wearing black. Black pleated trousers, black crew-neck tops, shiny black shoes, black suitcases. The impact is immediate. The All Blacks are described, with varying degrees of imagination, as a natty bunch of undertakers, a Mafia hit-squad, a Blues Brothers posse and, inevitably, as The Men In Black.

More frighteningly, John Hart suggests they've left at least six outstanding young players at home. "Consistency of selection is a cornerstone of our success. We have a vastly experienced side now, but it's not an old side. I look at our pack and after three days together in an All Black environment, even after a gruelling year, they're spring lambs again."

Enthusiasm is easier to muster when you're winning. And this year the All Blacks are not only unbeaten, they have posted record scores while defeating Australia three times and South Africa twice. The scrummaging practice in Pretoria must have helped. After a miraculous 35-32 comeback at Ellis Park, they destroyed Australia a week later in Melbourne with a magnificent first-half display before easing home 33-18.

"I think those back-to-back victories are the greatest ever achievement in New Zealand rugby," Hart reflects. "But this tour presents a new opportunity. Whatever I say, I know there's physical tiredness and mental frailty after 11 months of rugby. If we come through these next few weeks, we'll be a pretty good side . . ."

A couple of days later, Christian Cullen and I share a juice together. He is as down-to-earth as ever. "Mate," he laughs softly when we took back over the season, "the wins are starting to blur. We've played so much rugby it's hard to pick out one game from the other."

Is it less enjoyable? "Aw no, not at all. I love playing. There's nothing better. And the idea of pulling on that black shirt over here thrills me as much as it ever did. I guess it's why I was so nervous when they announced the team for the first match."

It seems incredible to write that, at the start of this tour, there was speculation in New Zealand that Cullen was being pushed hard for his place by Todd Miller, a nephew of the famous Going brothers and an almost perfect Cullen clone. The original's response against Llanelli was even more awesome than usual. On a slippery Saturday night he shredded the Scarlets, running in four exhilarating tries in a stunning 81-3 win.

Sean Fitzpatrick was missing, as he has been for the whole tour so far. "A lot of us have suffered with injury this season," Josh Kronfeld remarks. "I missed most of the Super 12s with a shoulder injury and then I was out of the provincial games with a dodgy elbow. It's been a hard year."

Fitzpatrick agrees, sounding more pensive than usual. "Well, this knee injury has been pretty serious and it's definitely made me think. I've been incredibly fortunate to get through 11 years of international rugby without any bother. This is the first time I've had to really cope with an injury. It hasn't been easy." Sidelined again for tomorrow's game, Fitzpatrick admits he is "more pessimistic" of playing at all on this tour.

None the less, it is hard to imagine that, after a month's holiday back home in the sun, he will not become the first player to reach the 100-cap mark next season. The World Cup, which he helped the All Blacks win in 1987, is the most seductive lure for him to keep the old body intact for another two years. "And first up," he says, "there's this small matter of a couple of matches against England. . . "

The All Blacks' relentlessly authoritative performances have not undermined their new-found mastery of the polite compliment. Hart claims "to handle England we must play exceptionally well from the first whistle". Fitzpatrick nods appreciatively at "the quality of some of their players", while Cullen thinks they've got a "pretty huge pack". Kronfeld is more realistic. "England now want to utilise the ball a bit more. They are trying to be more positive. I take my hat off to them. But, y'know, let's face it, it can't happen overnight. They might have to take a few bangs on the shins before they get it right."

A more brutal truth is that the battering England face today at Old Trafford, and at Twickenham in a fortnight, will bang more than a few shins. For whatever these canny New Zealanders say, this is more than just the best side in the world.

They now fulfil their most dizzying myths. They have proved that black is more then just the colour of one passing winter. Black is a perennial. And All Black, as Kronfeld knows, is the colour of rugby at its most dazzling.

Donald McRae is the author of Dark Trade, the award-winning book on heavyweight boxing.

The above article was provided to The Irish Times by the Guardian Syndication Service.