Henry - Scintillating rugby

New Zealand coach Graham Henry hailed his side's 'great performance' after they crushed Australia 49-28 in Melbourne.

The All Blacks ran in seven tries at Docklands Stadium to take a firm grip on this season's Tri-Nations after three straight bonus-point wins.

"To score seven tries against Australia in Australia is a great performance," Henry said after his side's 12th straight Test win.

"I thought there was some scintillating rugby and the game has improved immensely this year as a spectacle and we're pleased to be part of that."

Wallabies coach Robbie Deans bemoaned his side's errors - they were barely able to compete at the re-starts and played the last 37 minutes without winger Drew Mitchell, who was red carded by South African referee Craig Joubert after his second yellow card.

"We didn't have any consistent possession in the first half and that was a big contributing factor to our circumstance.

"Obviously, playing with less than 15 men for the greater part of the game compounded that."

The teams meet again in Christchurch next week where the Wallabies will be battling to prevent the All Blacks from stretching their winning sequence over them to nine Tests, their worst losing run in the last 63 years of Bledisloe Cup trans-Tasman Tests.