All.blacks Rugby Quotes

Not even an advancing All Blacks haka could have dragged him away from the swing of her ass

You Are Not Your Jersey “Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.” - Colin Powell The New Zealand All Blacks (national rugby team) have a mantra: “Leave the jersey in a better place”. It means, this is not your jersey, you are part of something bigger but do your best while you wear the jersey. It provides a valuable lesson about enjoying your moment in the sun but letting go to pursue another one once your time ends. When I played in Toulouse they had the same mindset. The club only contracted a certain number of players each year and there was a set number of locker spaces. Each locker was numbered in such a way that was not associated with a jersey number and that was also the number you wore on your club sportswear. Some numbers were 00, others were 85 and mine was 71. When I joined the coach explained to me in French that this was not my number, but I was part of a tradition that spanned decades. My interpretation still remains, “You are not your jersey.

So, fast forward from Cardiff 1997 to Auckland 2011, from a Rugby World Cup quarter-final to a World Cup final, from a team heading towards defeat to a team heading towards victory. It’s the same two sides playing: New Zealand vs. France. It’s just as tight, but this time New Zealand lead by one point. Read the body language. Richie McCaw breathes, holds his wrist, stamps his feet – reconnecting with himself, returning to the moment. He looks around. There are no glazed eyes now. No walking dead. Brad Thorne throws water over himself, cooling his thoughts. Kieran Read stares out to the far distant edge of the stadium, regaining perspective. New Zealand, the stadium of four million people, is less calm. The dread casts a long black cloud. The spectators can’t help but flash back to the bad pictures. They are in the Red, but the All Blacks stay in the Blue. The clock counts itself down, slowly, slowly; until finally . . . the whistle blows. 8-7 New Zealand. ‘We smashed ’em,’ says Graham Henry. And in their heads, they did.

You know, I reckon you’ve had a narrow escape. I was reading an article about early-onset arthritis in rugby players, and apparently the whole lot of them are cripples by the time they get to sixty. And they’re the ones who are sixty now; they played a hell of a lot less games forty years ago.’ ‘But they patch them up a lot better these days,’ I pointed out. ‘There’s still not much you can do about having no cartilage left in any of your joints.’ ‘They can replace knees and hips.’ ‘Not shoulders. Or fingers. How many of them has he dislocated?’ ‘I don’t know. A few.’ ‘There you go. Those’ll all be buggered in another ten years. You would have ended up wiping his bum for him.’ ‘I wouldn’t have minded,’ I muttered. He passed me out a handful of bolts and shuffled along to the next corner. ‘You’re pathetic. And there’s another reason you should have been heading for the hills.’ ‘What?’ I asked. ‘Do you know what the All Blacks’ motto is?’ ‘“Feed your backs”?’ ‘Nope. It is – and I kid you not – “Subdue and penetrate”.’ ‘I don’t believe you.’ ‘Google it then.’ ‘Maybe it didn’t sound so dodgy a hundred years ago when they came up with it,’ I said weakly. ‘Of course it did. It’s not like human biology’s changed since then. Very shady people, rugby players.

One of Henry’s toughest jobs when he arrived in the post was trying to eradicate the All Black’s inherent binge drinking culture. Previous All Black regimes had never challenged the idea of professional athletes knocking back the pop. For coaches and players who emerged through the amateur era it was hard to change the mindset. Booze had been an integral part of the culture in that period. There were no body fat tests or other high tech assessments of this, that and the other back then. As amateurs it was their right to have a few beers – that was kind of the point of playing. Rugby has never been just about what happens on the field. The camaraderie has always extended into the bar and a rugby team that hadn’t drunk together was not a team.

he’s wearing tight jeans and an All Blacks rugby shirt, one of the new performance home jerseys. They’re ultra-tight, to make it difficult for rugby opponents to grab. As he straightens, I can see every defined muscle in his chest. He has a six-pack. How did I not know he has a six-pack? I’ve trained myself not to look, but today my gaze lingers of its own accord on his toned body, his muscular arms, with the gorgeous black tattoo that snakes out and curls around his right biceps.

There’s no yielding to status in a rugby tackle, there’s no privilege in a scrum.

A mi primer equipo con Scrum solía presentarle un video del equipo de rugby All Blacks preparándose para un partido. Los All Blacks, escuadra legendaria de la diminuta Nueva Zelanda, son un equipo trascendente. Antes de cada encuentro celebran la ceremonia de la haka, propia de los guerreros maoríes. La haka es una danza guerrera que llena de energía a quienes están por entrar en batalla. Al presenciarla, casi puedes ver la energía salir de cada jugador y fusionarse en un gran conjunto.

the analogy of a bridge that is secure because it is made of several different planks: personal skills, friends, family, being an All Black. ‘If the only plank you’ve got is the rugby one, then you’ll always come unstuck.