The hakarena. Pom bashing is about to get serious in NZ

The British sense of humour, and art of self deprecation, comes across loud and clear in Matt Dawson’s Hakarena.

Before Kiwis start suffering from mass sense of humour failure, let’s take a moment to reflect on who started #hakafails

To be fair, the present day All Blacks haka is a piece of great theatre.

Dawson, in conjunction with clothing company Jacamo and team-mates from the Battersea Ironsides rugby club, combined the haka with Los Del Rio’s “The Macarena” and posted it to You Tube:

“England have an amazing chance to be crowned world champions for just the second time in history, but there’s a major obstacle, the All Blacks. The current world champions are in amazing form with awesome power, strength, depth, and one secret weapon, the Haka. They’ve used it to intimidate us, they think they have an advantage over us, they think they’ve won the game before a ball has been kicked.”

The dance is being spun by the NZ press as an All Blacks snub, no doubt to stir up some partisan support. But it’s obvious Dawson and co. are taking the piss out of themselves.

The UK’s Daily Mail wrote

Jacamo, the clothing brand that made the video, denied it was offensive, and claimed it ‘acknowledges the sheer might of the reigning champions’, while ‘having a bit of a giggle’.

And the players who joined Dawson, from the Battersea Ironsides club, also seemed to think it was all good fun.

Marcus Bailey, 22, captain and hooker of Battersea Ironsides RFC, said: ‘We responded to a request on social media to get involved and it was great fun.

‘A choreographer came down and showed us the moves and we all picked them up pretty quickly. We were all up for it and had it down in about 15 minutes.

‘It was a bit of a departure from our usual training sessions but it was a real laugh and great to work with Matt.’ …

…The haka has been controversial in recent years, with some teams choosing to confront the All Blacks at the start of a game, and the most current version, unveiled in 2005, including an apparent throat-slitting gesture, which was explained by it’s creator as a Maori symbol of renewal… read more

Only in NZ could a throat-slitting gesture be seen as a ‘symbol of renewal’?

Expect to see the hakarena at all good Ibiza nightclubs, and rugby pitches near you,  soon.

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