1 Dan Carter can play rugby

Not all the points, I swear, will be so obvious. But wasn't he brilliant? The range of his passes was exceptional, with one exception to the exceptional, the one that went to Maxime Mermoz when the game was already tucked up in bed. His kicking, too, was varied and perfectly weighted. The only team ever to have made Carter crack are South Africa, once, in the Tri Nations, when they charged their biggest runners into him and blitzed him, four-on-one, in defence. Basically, they roughed him up. France, who reduced him to looking uncomfortable in the quarter-final of 2007, gave him the run of Eden Park, and Carter gave a sublime lesson in exploiting a flimsy defence. It has been noted by the French that to win the World Cup they will have to beat New Zealand – and just the once will do. The story of Carter and the French defence may not be over yet.

2 Drop goals count



No drop kick was landed with greater relish on the weekend than Carter's against the French. There was no need for it, because the All Blacks were coasting, but this was a kick with a sting, all to do with that Cardiff quarter-final four years ago, when New Zealand failed to work their way into a good position for the simple three-pointer. There again, perhaps it's not so simple. Dan Parks landed one, a skimmer, against Argentina, but when it came to the second, the killer … well, was he not deep enough, did Mike Blair's pass put him on his left foot, or was it the Argentine rush that forced him to kick with his weaker foot? Were they offside? Not so simple at all, and you can bet that as we near the knock-out stages, all expert kickers and even the part-timers, will be putting in a little extra practice. The real thing, though, when it really matters, is different. As Jonny, on his wrong foot, will tell you.

3 New Zealand can't do crowds?



It has reached the point where they tell you first how light the crowd is of a full house, and on Sunday at Eden Park it was only about 500 short of the audience for New Zealand-France. Now, Samoa-Fiji was priced differently, and Auckland is the biggest Polynesian city in the world, but, even so, to see the Park packed with 60,000 on consecutive days by two completely different sets of theatre-goers shows that NZ is flying as a World Cup host. Twenty-four years ago the World Cup was born here (with Australia as co-hosts) and played to half-empty houses in inadequate stadiums. Rugby needs to expand – and will in 2019 in Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore – but there is still time to appreciate the internal growth of the sport in New Zealand. Their nurturing is not entirely selfless, for without cherry-picking the very best of the Pacific Islanders for themselves, a country this size would not be able to maintain their rugby pre-eminence, but more is done here in schools, clubs, provinces, coaching clinics and think-tanks to take the sport forward than anywhere else. And that includes watching it in numbers.

4 Send for the physio – there's a physio injured

A directive has been issued that, in order to nip in the bud any inclination to feign injury and give the defending side a breather, play should carry on even when a man is down. "Play on" is always to be welcomed, but at the weekend this uninterrupted action always seemed to be heading in the direction of the injured player and the attending physio(s). In the case of Juan Martín Fernández Lobbe, who was about as keen to leave the field as a crow from the eyes of a dead sheep, it was clear that his knee was genuinely damaged and that he was not exactly in a position to hop out of the way when the traffic started coming his way. At one stage the medicos looked up in alarm, but presumably some sort of oath prevented them from abandoning their patient and they seemed willing to go down with Argentina's mighty but fallen No8 beneath the stampede of a Scottish pick-and-drive. A bit of common sense, surely ...

5 Will England's baggage prove too heavy?



It's not easy being England. Their performance against Argentina has gone the way of most indifferent starts (South Africa, Australia) and been put behind them. But, goodness me, they cannot shake off this wretched Queenstown bouncer, nor what was captured – and may or may not be released – in bar B. The latest philosophical slant on the saga comes from the owner of that second bar, Cowboys. "Our position is that if it's not a crime, then we won't release the footage." . England on the playing field look as if they are coming together. Whether this is as important as their other baggage and whatever else happens in the life and marriage of Mike Tindall in the House of Windsor, depends on your view of … well, probably quite a few things in life, really.