The win opens the door for the Australians to bring home the Bledisloe Cup after 17 years away, but to do so they must crack their first win in Auckland since 1986.

"We are all pumped but all we've done is bought ourselves a ticket to Auckland, that's it," Cheika said.

"It's a great atmosphere and great for the players to get the win but in the bigger scheme of things that's what we've got ourselves - a ticket to go there and take the opportunity that we're going to get given there."

The Australians were given little chance of knocking off their arch-rivals, but delivered their best performance in years to make a statement with the World Cup starting next month.

"A few things went our way but I was really pleased for the lads," Cheika said.

"They've been working hard so it was a nice little reward for them."

The All Blacks were forced to play the entire second half with 14 men after lock Scott Barrett was sent off in the 40th minute by French referee Jerome Garces for making contact with the head of Wallabies skipper Michael Hooper with his elbow and shoulder.

While it was a tough call, Australia already had their tails up with a dominant first half and took a 16-12 lead into the break.

Cheika said the fact that they faced an undermanned All Blacks didn't take any gloss off the win.

"Not a chance," he said.

"When they've got 15 on the field it feels like 20 so when they've got 14 it still feels like 17 or 18 as they have so many threats.

"It's not like they weren't scoring tries."

It was difficult to pick the Wallabies' best with Hooper everywhere, halfback Nic White a handful , Reece Hodge scoring a double and the entire forward pack deserving a pat on the back.

James O'Connor, starting his first match in six years, also booked his ticket to Japan as he set up a try and gave the attack plenty of options.

The Wallabies extended the margin to 26-12 early in the second half with giant flanker Lukhan Salakaia-Loto scoring before Samu Kerevi set up the second.

The bustling inside centre steam-rolled star All Blacks fullback Beauden Barrett before offloading to White.

Barrett exacted some revenge six minutes later when he darted through some flimsy Wallabies defence, with the conversion closing the gap to seven points.

But that was as close as the undermanned Kiwis could get as the scoreboard ticked over for Australia.

Fullback Kurtley Beale iced the win with their sixth try in the 80th minute to allow the celebrations to begin.

In an extra sweetener, the All Blacks could surrender their world No.1 ranking to Wales for the first time since 2009 should the Welsh beat England later this weekend.

All Blacks coach Steve Hansen said his team were their own worst enemy, lamenting their poor discipline.

"I'm disappointed but Australia deserved the win as they were the best side on the day," Hansen said.

"The red card didn't help us but we didn't help ourselves either. "Our discipline was poor early in that first half and we missed 20 tackles out of 90 in the first half.

"So they're all things we've got to fix up."

Australian Associated Press