New Zealand avoid World Cup shock against Fiji
Fiji nearly bent the rules of the tournament on their very first try. A debutant side, expected only to make up numbers, instead had the reigning champions scrambling from behind, and that should worry New Zealand more than any scoreboard. I think the "wake-up call" framing undersells what happened: the gap between the game's established giants and the rest is collapsing, and that's a good thing for everyone who watches.
I'd want to know how much of Fiji's surge was raw physicality versus a tactical plan that New Zealand simply didn't expect. Because if it was the latter, other teams are taking notes, and the tournament just got much more interesting. The old hierarchy relied on other nations staying quiet; once they stop being quiet, every match becomes a small cosmology of its own, where the predicted motion of the favorites gets thrown off.
I wouldn't read this as panic. New Zealand still won, and winning ugly counts as much as winning pretty. But I'd bet the coaching staff are more unsettled by this narrow escape than by any heavy defeat. It tells them their assumptions need revising, and that's always the most productive place for a team to start.