It is the most intimidating uniform you can wear. No flashy logos, no patterns, no designs. Just darkness coming at you from all directions. Every team would wear all black if they could, but not every team could pull it off.
The New Zealand All Blacks are not just the best rugby team on the planet (they’ve won two World Cups—no country has won three—and have a winning record against every nation in the world), they’re the most threatening as well. If you don’t believe it, YouTube “the haka” and watch 22 men the size of mountains scream at their opponents before a game, slapping their thighs and biceps while stomping their feet the way New Zealand’s native Maori warriors would before they charged your village and killed every last one of you. The haka the All Blacks performed before taking on France in the final of the 2011 World Cup ended with each player miming a slash across his throat.
It is aggressive, much like the team’s uniform, which embodies the fierce competitiveness New Zealand’s national sides bring to the pitch. You could call the uniform retro, but that’s only because it’s barely changed since 1892, the year the New Zealand Rugby Union was formed. The founders chose black jerseys with a silver fern leaf over the heart, white shorts and black socks as the official uniform instead of the dark blue the team had worn earlier. By the 1900s, the shorts were black, too, and countries the team toured took to calling the squad the “All Blacks.”
The uniform epitomizes rugby. It’s not just the more brutal, physically demanding cousin of American football (oh, you guys stop hitting each other when someone gets tackled?), rugby is a game based on esteem and tradition. Foul play is often policed not by the referee but by the players themselves, who dole out cleated stomps at the bottom of piles to guilty parties; teams shake hands after games and applaud each other off the field; players address the referee as “sir.” You honour those who came before you in the game and those who will come after you with the way you play, and you respect your opponent, even as you’re driving your shoulder through his ribs. That’s why New Zealand’s kit has never changed and never will. The All Blacks who fought hard for the country 100 years ago wore that uniform, and thus so too do the All Blacks of today.
Aggressiveness, intimidation, honour, respect, courage, war—embodied in one uniform. And it only needs one colour to say it all.
This story originally appeared in Sportsnet magazine. Subscribe here.