All Blacks for the grand slam and a Haka in the garage?

On form New Zealand have just beaten the second best team in the world in Hong Kong. They also beat them with an experimental backline.

There is no one capable of halting them on their tour to the UK and if anyone gets within 15 points of them I will be amazed.

Off on a slightly different tangent, I wonder whether we will see a repeat of the debacle in Cardiff a few years back where the All Blacks threw their toys out of the pram and did their Haka in the garage of the Millenium Stadium?

Why did they? because they thought that they were more important than the National anthem of their host nation. Arrogant beyond belief.

Australian schoolboy Haka

Kiwi’s take their rugby seriously of that there is no doubt. What follows is a touch bleary due to the volume of beer consumed whilst the tale below was being recanted, however, you will get the gist.

Over dinner last night my wife’s cousin (a musician and rugby lover) starting telling us about his schoolboy trip to New Zealand to play rugby. His school offered scholarships for music so that should provide some context as to their rugby playing aspirations.

The teacher who was taking them on the trip was from Sweden and had no rugby knowledge whatsoever. He was though, keen and thorough. After reading a book on New Zealand rugby he decided that his team also needed their own haka to perform before matches.

What of course the book could not get across to this teacher from Sweden was the pride associated with the haka and the complete hatred of all things Australian on a rugby field.

The teams headed onto the field for the first match of the tour.

The kiwi hosts proudly stood on their 10 metre line and laid down the challenge to their opponents with a passionate and vigorous haka. One can only imagine what went through their minds when their opponents formed their own semi circle and started their own challenge, which involved much arm waiving and started with the unforgetable line of “Walla Walla, tiki tiki”.

You have to remember that this was being performed to us at the same time as the story was being told from there the beer and laughter construed to make the rest too hard to remember.

For the record the aggreived hosts broke the jaw of the Australian number 10 (who had led their haka) straight from the kick off, the slaughter continued throughout the tour…. As did the Australian haka.