How The New Zealand All Blacks Rule The World

[happybhoy]

A few weeks ago the mighty All Blacks visited Scotland for an international rugby match. Always a big occasion because they are legendary in rugby with an all-time win rate of more than 75%.

The result was a New Zealand win, with Scotland coming close to winning the game but getting tackled metres from the line in the dying seconds.

After the match, the Scotland captain gave an interview. It went along the lines of "We're gutted but we see the positives in coming metres away from beating the greatest sports team ever".

That's what hit me - "the greatest sports team ever". How the hell did a tiny 4.5m population country create a team good enough to be called the greatest ever by people on the opposite side of the planet?

the answer is laser focus.

It doesn't come down to straight numbers, New Zealand has far less rugby players than Australia, England or France and even soccer has more players in the country. Whats different is the coordinated focus in the whole New Zealand rugby set up. from top to bottom, the domination of the All Blacks is the single goal.

I know rugby isn't the most glamorous sport in the world but single-single track dedication has led a tiny country to domination.

This thought has been keeping me focused and away from shiny things lately so I thought it was worth sharing.

 

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[Deri]

The all blacks play to win at all costs. Each player knows the rule book inside and out and push the rules to the limit. Cheating is fine with them if they don’t get caught.



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[Scot]

They really gotta reconsider that name though.. as an American I see it and go. Uhhh... that’s racist yo.

 

[Dan_Fastlane]

what is impressive is they dont juice! it seems those people ethnicity or DNA has something to do with their fast improvement in strength and speed. Also for them its something Spiritual and has something to do with their Warrior Culture... saw a documentation about them very interesting.

 

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[papi016]

They really gotta reconsider that name though.. as an American I see it and go. Uhhh... that’s racist yo.

As a black American I felt the same way

 

[happybhoy]

As a black American I felt the same way

It just comes from the colour of their jersey, I presume.

 

[Deri]

It just comes from the colour of their jersey, I presume.

Black jerseys, shorts and socks. Nothing racist it’s not gender oriented. They also have a side team called the Maury all blacks which are all Maury players.

Rugby is a great sport fellas.


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[Veloce Grey]

They really gotta reconsider that name though.. as an American I see it and go. Uhhh... that’s racist yo.

Many rugby teams try and have an informal sort of branded name yet still get stuck referred to as "the (insert country) national rugby team". The NZ Team are simply referred to as the All Blacks almost universally, which is a obviously a huge branding plus and gets them more money to help pay players who are generally a risk to leave for bigger money contracts in Europe or Japan and would therefore be ineligible to play for them.

You would throw away that branding advantage and associated money because of the misconceptions and offended feelings of people in a faraway country where rugby is well down the pecking order? That would be nuts.

 

[Veloce Grey]

As a black American I felt the same way

The national sporting colours of NZ are black and to a lesser extent white. So all black is a basic default sporting uniform to represent the country in the same way any combo of red/white/blue could be used for the USA, red/white for Canada etc.

Since the All Blacks are the most famous NZ team many of the other sports names are variations of that-

Rugby team-All Blacks
Soccer team-All Whites (as they play in white)
Basketball-Tall Blacks
Cricket- Black Caps
Ice Hockey- Ice Blacks
Softball-Black Socks

There's nothing racial about it. And seeming to have a fairly well known and popular team colour to yourself among 200+ countries around the world is quite useful in sports, especially when you're watching the Olympics and can just look for the athlete in black to find the NZer.