England will hope that Joe Marler has not given New Zealand any extra motivation ahead of their Autumn Nations Series clash at Twickenham on Saturday after saying the “ridiculous” haka “needs binning”.
It is 12 years since England last downed the All Blacks on home soil, but drew here in 2022 and came within one point of beating them in the Southern Hemisphere just three months ago, losing 16-15 in Dunedin.
In such a razor-tight match-up, England coaches are unlikely to have been pleased when they saw that Marler, the loosehead prop who is not involved this weekend, lit the blue touch paper on social media by insisting the haka is “only any good when teams actually front it with some sort of reply. Like the league boys did last week.”
Marler was referring to England’s rugby league clash with Samoa on Sunday, where the pre-game challenge ended with the two teams face to face, or in at least one case forehead to forehead.
The furious backlash caused Marler to deactivate his X account.
Dr Karaitiana Taiuru, a Maori cultural advisor, told the BBC: “Calling for it to be binned with no reasoning shows a lack of appreciation for traditions which is a contradiction for any rugby player – cultural appreciation and lack of open mindedness.”
Marler has left the England squad, although that is understood to have happened on Monday for personal, unrelated reasons.
He returned to social media only hours after seeming to quit, insisting that “context is everything. Just having a bit of fun trying to spark interest in a mega rugby fixture. Some wild responses”. He added that he “also needed to satisfy my narcissism”.
It is understood that the England hierarchy did not ask Marler to delete the post or deactivate his account, but the direction of travel under head coach Steve Borthwick has been to avoid pre-match confrontation of this kind.
The antithesis to his predecessor Eddie Jones, the former England second row has rarely said a word out of place in Test week, and has certainly never gone out of his way to rile the opposition. Insulting the haka, a sacred pre-match ritual of significance in Maori culture, is one area almost guaranteed to create controversy, should the All Blacks wish to bite on it.
What is the haka?
The All Blacks were not always such an intimidating prospect before a ball was even kicked. In the 1970s, the team only performed the haka on foreign soil and with little coordination or passion. Footage from one such performance in 1973 shows players looking at each other for clues as to what to do next and almost no synchronisation.
It was, frankly, an insult to the tradition, which is a performance that comes from Maori culture; many different versions exist and can be applied to all manner of celebrations such as the welcoming of distinguished guests, weddings and funerals. It is principally a celebration of life and not – as it is often termed – “a war dance”, although the Maori battalion in the New Zealand armed forces would perform a haka before combat.
But in rugby, it was the influence of No 8 Buck Shelford and hooker Hika Reid, both men with Maori heritage, that transformed the All Blacks’ approach to it.
“We said you are going to have to learn it properly,” Shelford told The Telegraph this week. “So that means we are going to have to go to the team room and learn it step by step. We got them down there and they started to understand what it was all about.
“We put the English words underneath the Maori words so they could tell what it meant. That made a big difference and all of a sudden they really started to buy into it. They started to do it quite well.”
A Shelford-captained side performed the haka on home soil for the first time in 1987, having sought permission from a number of Maori elders to do so. A haka entitled “Ka Mate” is the version most commonly performed by New Zealand before games.
How do teams respond?
Most opposing sides stand respectfully opposite the haka, staring down the challenge presented by the All Blacks, although there have been significant exceptions.
In 1996, Australia started warming up and hitting tackle bags during the haka, largely ignoring the New Zealanders in the other half as they danced. The Aussies were thrashed 43-6. Five years earlier, another Australian – David Campese – had refused to let the haka interrupt his last pre-match kicking practice.
At Twickenham, England fans commonly sing their anthem “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” as a response to the haka; the team most often stand unmoved but before their 2019 semi-final showdown at the Rugby World Cup, captain Owen Farrell stood at the base of a V shape formation – although that was later revealed to be a mistake, since the whole team was supposed to walk forward, and the middle section simply didn’t.
In 2007, the All Blacks ended up performing the haka in the changing room after a dispute with the Welsh Rugby Union about when it could be done on the pitch: the visitors wanted to do it after the anthems just before kick-off, Wales insisted they could not.
They relented a year later, but instead stood their ground after it finished. Neither team budged, and it took the referee nearly 90 seconds to break up the 10-yard stand-off. Once again, it did little to affect the result as New Zealand were victorious.
Is responding to the haka banned?
No, but there are limits to what you can do.
World Rugby’s guidelines around “cultural challenges” – management-speak for the haka and other pre-match rituals similar to it – state that teams must remain 10 metres apart throughout. In the 2019 controversy, England were fined a four-figure sum by World Rugby because six players were seen to have crossed the halfway line at the front of the V formation.
But as long as teams stay in their half, there is no obligation to stand and face the haka, although it is often seen as a mark of disrespect to a sacred and ancient ceremony not to do so.