8 Things You Didn’t Know About The All Blacks

New Zealand’s rugby team is one of the most famous (if not most famous) sports teams globally. The All Blacks are a dominant force in the rugby world and have a record for winning against every other team they play against. They are indeed the MVPs of sporting excellence.

But, other than their pre-game Haka and gold standard, what else is there to know about them? Let’s find out 8 things you didn’t know about the All Blacks and also make sure to get ready for free spins NZ this holiday season. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to make big wins

1. It’s An Ancestry Kind Of Thing

The NZ All Black team is Māori. To that effect, the All Blacks have been represented by 19 sons and their fathers, with the most recent being Tim Perry (2017) and Richard Perry (1980). The All Blacks have also been home to 47 sets of brothers. Nine years after Bryn Evans wore the black jersey, Gareth Evans made his debut in November 2018 against Japan.

2. There Have Been 838 Test Players Out Of All The 1,153

Anton Leinert-Brown is the most recent All Black. However, James Allan was the first recognized All Black, representing New Zealand on the first-ever national representative tour to Australia in 1884.

Each of the four teams, Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury, and Otago, was granted a quota of five players to choose from on tour, with Canterbury providing captain William Milton.

3. There’s no ‘bigger’ player

Unlike other sports teams, there’s nothing like a single player being more prominent than the rest. That means there aren’t any divas, and everyone has a common goal and culture. This principle is based on the Māori idea of “Whanau.”

4. How the name stuck

“All Blacks” is a mighty team name that came to be when the team came out to the field one day with their uniforms drenched in all Black. After this, the name stuck, and it has been used ever since.

5. The team is homegrown

The All Black has often been accused of getting the best players from nations in the Pacific Islands to form the NZ team. Even so, there aren’t many All Blacks from many other countries. For example, in the 2019 World Cup, only four of the 31-man team came from outside the country. There was one from Fiji, one from Samoa, and two from Tonga. This is unlike countries such as South Africa and Argentina that had less to no foreign-born players.

6. They went on a 5-month tour between September 1905 and February 1906

The All Blacks first appeared in a possible 35-match tour of California, Wales, England, Ireland, Scotland, and France. The first game they played was on September 16^th, 1905, and the last one on this tour was on February 13^th, 1906. Out of the 35 games they played, they won 34 and dropped a match.

7. They discovered the game in 1870

Charles Monro, born in “the Land of the Long White Cloud,” also known as Aotearoa, attended a college in North West London, where he discovered rugby. He then thought his countrymen would enjoy it, and brought the game to New Zealand in 1870.

8. They could have contributed towards the end of apartheid

Due to the Apartheid practices of South African governments at the time, tours of different countries during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s were always contentious. 29 countries boycotted the 1976 Montreal Olympics to condemn an All Blacks tour of South Africa.

It would not be an exaggeration to claim that the ensuing protests, especially in New Zealand, helped bring apartheid to an end and set the stage for international sport to play a far more significant role in politics than it does today.