New Zealand Top Women’s World Rankings
New Zealand’s Black Ferns have been ranked #1 on the first rankings for women’s Test rugby. “It’s a positive step for one of the fastest growing team sports in the world, as it brings parity…
Tag Archives: NZ Rugby
Jonah Lomu: A Gentle Giant
For many the defining image of gentle giant Jonah Lomu, who died in November, aged 40, is the sight of the New Zealand rugby star swatting aside England players in the semi-final of the 1995…
The Ground We Won – Trailer
The Ground We Won is a highly authentic, slice of life film about the challenges and joys of manhood, as seen through the rites and rituals of a rural…
Greatest Uniforms in Sports, No. 5: New Zealand All Blacks
“Aggressiveness, intimidation, honour, respect, courage, war—embodied in one uniform. And it only needs one colour to say it all” is how Arden Zwelling describes the New Zealand All Blacks uniform in an article for…
Fear the Flanker
Forty-eight test veteran, Jerry Collins, 27, has announced his retirement from New Zealand rugby. Collins said: “It’s difficult for me to talk about myself but I know I’ve always been committed to every minute of every…
Mighty Totara of NZ Rugby
All Black and NZ Maori legend Pat Walsh has died of cancer aged 71. Renowned for his versatility, Walsh played 13 Tests in four positions between 1955 and 1963. He served as…
Home Town Tribute
A memorial to legendary All Black captain Dave Gallaher is being planned in his home town of Ramelton, Ireland. The Dave Gallaher Society is proposing the transformation of a bottle recycling waste ground into a walled…
End of One Era, Beginning of Another
All Black captain Tana Umaga has officially retired from the game aged 34, with a stellar career behind him. “Already he has been admitted by his countrymen into the exclusive band of great NZ captains, along…
Golden Oldies Return to the Source
Wellington is to host next year’s World Golden Oldies Rugby Festival, the first time the event has been held in NZ since it was launched there 28 years ago. The festival is expected to attract approximately 5,000,…
Multi-tasker
“Double internationals – people who represent their country at more than one sport – are rare. Someone who represents his country on the sports field and also stands on it to sing the national anthem is…
“The Boot” Remembered
Rugby fans around the world farewell Don “the Boot” Clarke, an incomparable All Black legend. Business Day calls him “an icon for a generation of NZers,” while The Australian remembers his match-winning conversion against France at Athletic Park…
Pinetree Chews the Fat
“If you want a snapshot of the way rugby used to be, there is no more impressive monument to the past than Colin Meads, a man as straight as he was hard.” The Observer talks rugby,…
Daggs vs. SNAGs
Kiwi men not wild but woolly apparently: NZ Rugby columnist “Jessie”(Jack?) was quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald calling her male countrymen “girls with hairy legs” in a rant against men embracing, “their long-haired,…
All Blue
Former Kiwi rugby player centre Tony Marsh is “a major force” in French rugby’s resurgence in this years Six Nations tournament as the French take the Grand Slam for the first time since 1988.
Pinetree Growl
“Colin Meads, the grim, great New Zealand lock, was once asked why British and Irish forwards were inferior to those produced by the southern hemisphere – especially the forbidding, beetle-browed men produced by New Zealand. “Too many…
White Flight = All Black
British journalists fear reverse colonisation as staunch Polynesian men flex their muscles on the rugby field.
