New Zealand's first full-scale tour of South Africa in 30 years began with an underwhelming 38-21 win over the Stormers.
The scoreline flattered a scratch All Blacks side which was favoured to win comfortably.
The makeshift Stormers - in pre-season mode - rallied twice to tie the score, which was knotted at 14-14 until 13 minutes to go.
When the Stormers lost their second scrum-half and had no more reserve backs, the patched-up backline was ruthlessly exposed by New Zealand, who scored three tries in the last eight minutes.
But the result only papered over a performance that was blighted by ill-discipline, three yellow cards, and a struggling set-piece.
They overcame those with six tries to three by the Stormers in front of a 47,130 crowd.
The good news for the All Blacks was they appeared to finish with no major injuries, seven players made their first appearance in the black jersey this year, and two more made their debuts off the bench; prop Siale Lauaki and inside back Josh Jacomb.
But the most impressive players in the stadium were Stormers fly-half Yaqeen Ahmed, who looked comfortably cool in his first-class debut at age 20, and flanker Deon Fourie, the dynamo who will be 40 next month.
"It was a good introduction for us to South African rugby," said New Zealand head coach Dave Rennie. "We started very well and it looked like which side had the ball got rewarded by the referee.
"When we had the ball we were really dangerous. We knew they would bring line speed [in defence]. We just weren't quite clinical enough to expose them.
"They came at us with their set-piece and we need to be better in those areas. We expected a lot of aerial attacks and we probably did not handle that as well as we could have."
Watch New Zealand's Tour of South Africa live on Your Site
