It is the most famous pre-game ritual in sport.
The haka, a ceremonial Maori dance performed by the New Zealand rugby union team — and other sides representing that country across different sports — is, in many ways, the iconic image of rugby itself.
In Baltimore tomorrow (Saturday), a sell-out 71,000 crowd at M&T Bank Stadium will get the chance to witness it first-hand when the team known as the All Blacks take on South Africa in the final match of a four-Test series. It is the first time the world’s two most successful rugby-union nations have met on American soil.
And yet 20 years ago, the haka’s future was in doubt — assailed by protests from rival teams that New Zealand gained an unfair advantage from performing it as the final action before kick-off in a Test match.
“We were going through a stage where people didn’t want it,” says Tana Umaga, the former All Black who became the first Pasifika man to captain the team in 2004 and is now their defence coach. “They thought it was an unfair advantage, a waste of time.
“And we didn’t have a true connection or an understanding of it. It was a whole rigmarole, and I was at a stage where I thought, ‘Oh man, everyone’s moaning about it, let’s just not do it and get out there and play’.”
But something about this prospect still sat uneasily with Umaga.
The team’s new captain, he decided to call in a Maori elder, Derek Lardelli, to seek education on what the haka meant. Now knighted, Lardelli is still involved with the All Blacks, working especially closely with their new players.
“He explained to me that if you have loved ones buried in Aotearoa (the Maori word for New Zealand), then those bloodlines are intertwined with all the bloodlines of the ancestors, which is the Maori people,” Umaga explains. “Those are intertwined, and we gain strength from the ground, which is why we stomp on the ground when we’re doing the haka, to awaken those ancestors and those bloodlines to come through and empower us.”
Lardelli and Umaga decided to work on a new haka to augment the traditional version, which is called Ka Mate (‘I die’). They named it Kapa o Pango — literally translated as ‘Team in Black’.
The lessons Umaga learned are manifest in its lines: “Kia whakawhenua au i ahau! Ko Aotearoa e ngunguru nei!” (“Let me become one with the land. New Zealand is rumbling here.”)
Though it was not ready to use in a prestigious series against the touring British & Irish Lions in 2005, Umaga’s side introduced it against South Africa later that year. It immediately gained attention for a move externally perceived as a throat-slitting motion — it actually represents air being drawn into the performer’s lungs.
“We got to that match, and if we hadn’t got total buy-in from all the players then, we probably would not have done it,” Umaga says. “The most nervous were the young guys who didn’t necessarily want to change something, but we explained that we weren’t trying to take something away, but to add value. It was part of the legacy that we were building. We wanted to leave something behind for others to use.”
Two decades on, New Zealand’s captain is Scott Barrett, whose brothers Beauden and Jordie are also both current internationals. Though of European heritage, Barrett is clear about Kapa o Pango’s importance.
“It basically brought everyone together,” he explains. “If you’re Pacific Island, if you’re a New Zealander, European, Maori… you’re playing for the All Blacks.”
Though the choice of which haka to perform before each individual game is made by the team’s leadership committee, Kapa o Pango is usually selected for the very biggest matches — such as the current series against South Africa, winners of the past two Rugby World Cups in 2019 and 2023.
Over the past month, the haka has been at the heart of this intense rivalry. In a warm-up game against South African club side The Sharks, legendary former New Zealand centre Ma’a Nonu, now 44 years old, was playing for the home side. He performed an emotional one-man haka in response to the All Blacks’ challenge.
The night before that game, over dinner with Umaga, Nonu had been uncertain over whether to do it, not wanting the occasion to be about him.
“I got a call back from him in the morning,” Umaga says. “He asked me what I’d do (in his shoes). And I told him that I’d return the haka out of respect for the jersey that he’s toiled away in for many years, and achieved some of the greatest successes in our history. It’s about handing over the baton. That it is these young guys’ time now.”
In the Test series itself, South Africa have also gone out of their way to show the haka respect, despite their head coach Rassie Erasmus often seeking any chance to gain an edge on the opposition.
Over recent years, Erasmus has registered himself as a water boy so he can get on the field and pass messages to his team mid-game, and during this series he broke World Rugby rules by changing South Africa’s entire selected and announced front row of forwards just an hour before the match. Yet when it comes to the haka, he steered clear of any debate.
“It’s a privilege, a very emotional thing to face the haka,” Erasmus said in a pre-series press conference. “I will use WhatsApp, or tweet, or whatever to the Ellis Park (the Johannesburg stadium that staged the first Test) people. Since (former All Black and South Africa assistant coach) Tony (Brown) told us what the haka means, we admire it a little bit more.
“You won’t see us doing funny tricks when they do the haka. We’ve always had this weird opinion about the haka as an advantage, and asked, ‘Why can the All Blacks do it?’, but it’s actually an honour for us to face it.”
Some context: throughout the 1990s and 2000s, there were widespread complaints that New Zealand derived an unfair advantage from performing the haka — that while their opposition were forced to stand and watch them, the All Blacks were able to work themselves up to an emotional height right before kick-off.
France confront New Zealand during the haka at the 2007 World Cup (Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)
“They were able to stomp their feet and make all sorts of gestures and we had to stand there and admire them?” said then Ireland captain Willie Anderson in 1989, ahead of marching his side forward to stare down the haka. “No, I wasn’t having that.”
After a 23-6 loss in Dublin, Anderson quipped to reporters: “New Zealand won the game and we won the dance.”
Other nations have since sought to greet the haka with their own response — or lack of one. As the most consistently excellent side in rugby union history, the All Blacks usually repaid any reaction by inflicting a defeat.
Australia turned their backs to the haka in 1996 — and were beaten 43-6. In 2006, Wales insisted that their national anthem, ‘Land of Our Fathers’, should be the last thing performed before the game in Cardiff began. New Zealand declined — and carried out their haka in their changing room before delivering a 45-10 thrashing.
Two years later, when coached by New Zealander Warren Gatland, Wales learned that a haka was not technically over until any side looked away — and so began a tense 80-second stare-off between the two sides. Wales were improved in the game that eventually followed, but still lost 29-9.
England and France are two sides to concoct their own reaction to the haka and then win.
At the 2007 World Cup, the French wore coloured warm-up jerseys which they arranged to form the shape of their country’s flag — Le Tricolour. The game ended in a shock 20-18 quarter-final victory. Twelve years later, England arranged themselves in a V-shape which outflanked the haka, their fly-half Owen Farrell appearing to wink at the All Blacks’ display — and made it through to the World Cup final with a 19-7 triumph.
England face the haka at the 2019 World Cup, with Owen Farrell (pictured on the big screen) taking centre-stage ( Dan Mullan/Getty Images)
Yet in recent years, the International Rugby Board (IRB), the sport’s global governing body, have introduced regulations to protect the haka, ruling that the team facing it must remain in their own territory, and at least 10 metres away from the halfway line. Some see this as a step to avoid pre-match aggro in case the sides end up face to face. The more cynical may say it protects the branding of one of the sport’s most emotive commercial tools.
“There are probably and arguably only two teams in world sport that transcend across the world; Brazilian football and the All Blacks,” says Adidas category director Matt Fielding. “Even if people don’t know rugby, they know the haka.”
Yet no such regulation governs the people in the stands at these matches — with Irish fans typically singing the folk song Fields of Athenry during the haka in response, while England supporters opt for their rugby anthem, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. Before the series of South Africa-New Zealand meetings in recent weeks, Erasmus pleaded for home supporters not to sing over the top of it — perhaps wary of the All Blacks’ response.
“I don’t think the New Zealand supporters are going to make a noise while they do the haka,” he said pointedly, before the second Test in Cape Town. “I’m pretty sure the Capetonians will also do the same. It’s got nothing to do with how the game gets played, it doesn’t influence it. If you’re going to make a noise while they do it, it’s just stupid.”
His wishes were largely obeyed — until the third Test in Soweto last weekend, where the home crowd whistled and cheered during the haka. South Africa still emerged with a 29-24 victory after a stirring second-half comeback to lead 2-1 in the series, with tomorrow’s game in Baltimore the decider.
From Umaga’s perspective, a response is perfectly acceptable — within reason.
“I wouldn’t expect people to stand still, but I think people understand now that we’re challenging ourselves,” he says. “We do it because we feel that we’re representing where we come from; some small islands in the bottom of the Pacific that seem to be able to match the best of the world from bigger countries. We can still challenge at those top levels, and that’s a big thing for us.
“How you decide to stand up for any challenge is up to you. What other opposition teams decide to do is by-the-by for us.”
Additional reporting: Adam Crafton
