The All Blacks are one of the most enduringly successful and best-known sports teams in the world. Rugby people follow their every move and are more likely to know key dates in All Black history than they are their own wedding anniversary. But not everyone knows everything there is to know about the All Blacks. This is the book for them. When did the All Blacks first perform the haka, and why? What is the haka? How many different haka have the All Blacks performed? And here's a question that may even stump the rugby enthusiasts: when did the All Blacks do the haka during a match? And why are they called the All Blacks? Why did black become the colour of not just the national rugby team, but of every New Zealand sports team? And an integral part of the black uniform is the silver fern - how did that come about? Many questions will be answered for the uninitiated, the young, the visitors to New Zealand and people just wanting to immerse themselves in New Zealand popular culture. The All Blacks' rituals will be covered - but so too some of the great players and the great games, the moments in a sporting time which underlined the All Blacks not just as a great rugby team, but as a lasting expression of what it means to be a New Zealander.

Author Biography

Ron Palenski is one of New Zealand's most experienced and prolific sports writers. His books on rugby have sold many hundreds of thousands of copies over the past thirty years. As a journalist, he covered many rugby tours in New Zealand and overseas as well as Olympic and Commonwealth Games and much else besides. He has been judged Sports Journalist of the Year, Cricket Writer of the Year, Rugby Writer of the Year and Sports Columnist of the year, and in 1997 won the Sir Lance Cross Memorial Prize for his writing on the Olympics. In 2004 he was made a life member of the New Zealand Sports Journalists Assn and was given a SPARC Lifetime Award. He was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the New Year Honours in 2002.