Our series has no doubt created plenty of debate but we think the result is an impressive list of players, all of whom may be labelled All Black greats.
The idea came after a debate between two of my colleagues.
Rugby writer Steve Hepburn maintained too many All Blacks were being called ''great'', and there should be a discussion over which players were really worthy of that tag. Racing/sports reporter Matt Smith then proposed we establish a panel to determine the top 25.
Our consultants included former All Blacks (Jamie Joseph, Chris Laidlaw and Earle Kirton), a former All Black coach (Eric Watson), a former Black Ferns captain (Farah Palmer), broadcasters (Steve Davie, Paul Allison and Paul Dwyer), former rugby administrators (Ron Palenski, Stewart McKnight and John Hornbrook), two veteran rugby brains (Brent Edwards and Terry O'Neill), and a handful of Otago Daily Times staff (Hepburn, Smith, Alistair McMurran, Tony Love and Hayden Meikle).
We asked them all - most complied; a couple found it simply too difficult - not just to name their 25 greatest All Blacks, but to rank them from No 1 to 25.
We then awarded points based on a weighting system. If a player was ranked No 1, he got 25 points. No 2 = 24 points, No 3 = 23 points and so on, down to one point for a No 25 ranking. It was then a simple matter of tallying the points.
What we like about the list is that it is not skewed towards the modern era - a common failing with these sorts of projects. Bert Cooke, George Nepia, Billy Wallace and Maurice Brownlie are greats by any definition.
In saying that, two modern greats did make the top five. But few could argue that Dan Carter and Richie McCaw do not deserve their spots.
We always felt it would boil down to McCaw or Colin Meads for the top spot, and it proved to be very close.
The unluckiest player on our list - No 26 - was former Otago prop Kevin Skinner, whose 54 points were just two behind No 25 Kel Tremain.
The best of the rest were Buck Shelford (46), Mark Nicholls (42), Conrad Smith (41), Tiny White (38), Dave Loveridge (38), Johnny Smith (36) and Sid Going (36).