If Australian rugby fans needed any further reminding of the poor state of the game in this country it was provided by the All Blacks, who destroyed the Wallabies 54-34 in their Bledisloe Cup encounter in Sydney.

The final scoreline flattered the Wallabies, who were outclassed at the Olympic stadium by the All Blacks, with the World Cup winners taking their foot off the pedal after they led 54-6 early in the second half courtesy of eight tries.

It was the most points the All Blacks had ever scored against the Wallabies, who eventually grabbed some consolation tries through debutant Curtis Rona, Tevita Kuridrani, Kurtley Beale and Israel Folau.

The night belonged to the All Blacks, who issued a statement of how far they are ahead of their trans-Tasman rivals despite going through the motions for much of the second half.

Australia's provincial teams could not muster a single win against their New Zealand counterparts during the Super Rugby season, an embarrassing statistic which was reflected in the All Blacks' dominance of the Wallabies on Saturday night.

Rieko Ioane grounds the ball as he scores a try for the All Blacks. ( AAP: David Moir )

The two sides will meet in the second Bledisloe Cup Test as part of the Rugby Championship in Dunedin next Saturday.

Wallabies captain Michael Hooper was proud of his team's late fight-back, but admitted 39 first-half missed tackles took their toll.

"It is not the start we would have hoped for," he said.

"Being 50 points behind, you start to throw everything we had, I'm so happy with that."

The All Blacks scored six of their tries in the first half, with Rieko Ioane and Ryan Crotty both registering doubles before the break, and Liam Squire and Sonny Bill Williams also touching down for five-pointers.

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The contest was already over at half-time when the All Blacks led 40-6 and they moved further ahead inside eight minutes of the resumption of play through converted tries to Damian McKenzie and Ben Smith.

"It's nice to play in when it's coming off like that," All Blacks captain Kieran Read said.

"We obviously came here to try and play our game and it really came off. All the passes stuck and a pretty awesome first half.

"It showed the quality of the Aussie side in the second half to come back there and perhaps we just took the foot off the throat there."

Wallabies show fight too late in the contest

Wallabies captain Michael Hooper speaks to his players after an All Blacks try. ( AAP: David Moir )

A crowd of just 54,846 spectators, the lowest ever for a Bledisloe Cup match at the Olympic stadium, were witnessing one of the Wallabies' worst performances before Rona finally scored the home side's first try in the 51st minute.

Kuridrani, Beale and Folau followed with their efforts across the stripe but it was clear the All Blacks had shut down, perhaps with their thoughts already turning to the Dunedin encounter in a week's time.

Read conceded the All Blacks would look to improve on producing an 80-minute performance after giving up 28 points in the second half.

"I think in the second half we let frustration strangle us a little bit," he said.

"We just needed to dump that and get back to playing some simple footy. We showed in the first half we really just let the ball do the work, nothing special but it just worked for us.

"I think the first half was good and we were okay in patches of the second half but we conceded 34 points, which means most days of the week you're going to be losing Test matches.

"But you can't fault that first half. It was bloody fantastic."

If history is any guide, the Bledisloe Cup will remain in New Zealand hands for a 15th straight year with the Wallabies having never won a series after losing the first match at home.

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ABC/AAP