A capacity 27,000 crowd jammed themselves into Auckland's Mt Smart Stadium to watch one of the most-anticipated league match-ups of the year.
But given the vast majority were from New Zealand's huge Tongan community, they would have been disappointed as the Kiwis raced to a 12-0 lead after only seven minutes.
First Jahrome Hughes bundled his way over from close to the line, before Jordan Rapana finished off a long-range move to dive in under the posts.
To their credit, the Tongans took the only real opportunity in the half, with Sione Katoa crossing in the corner after some lovely build-up work by Viliami Penisini.
But that simply inspired the Kiwis to slam the door shut, with aggressive defence by the middle forwards barely allowing the Tongans out of their half.
The break saw the Kiwis take a commanding 20-6 lead after Rapana kicked a penalty goal before Dylan Brown floated a beautiful ball out wide for Ronaldo Mulitalo to score the try of the match.
Both debutants had solid games, but the real standouts were Jesse Bromwich and Joseph Manu, who dictated play on both attack and defence.
By the time Isiah Papali'I stretched out to score in the 62nd minute, the game was already won, but the Kiwis kept pressing their advantage right until the end.
Despite the unusually flat Tongan performance, the crowd was in full voice throughout, with Mt Smart once again becoming a sea of red Tongan flags.
That really was the only highlight from their perspective, with stars like Jason Taumalolo and Addin Fonua-Blake well contained.
Kotoni Staggs and Talatau Amone had a hard time getting anything going in the halves, with Tonga unable to force even one goal-line drop-out.
The Kiwis came into the game ranked world No.1, a status they backed up with what can be best described as a professional win.
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