The Haka and the Handbag

The New Zealand rugby team, the All Blacks, begin every game with a traditional haka. A haka is a Maori war dance (more of a chant with hand gestures and foot stomping) which describes graphically how the opposition will be treated, and the players standing opposite the display on the field have got to be intimidated. Besides the haka, there is also the fact that the All Blacks are one tough team. In this video of the haka, note the "speaker".

His name is Tana Umaga and in a recent pub incident in Christchurch, he famously belted a team-mate with a woman's handbag.

Now Channel 7 in Australia is using the haka and the handbag incident to promote its coverage of Saturday's Tri-Nations Test against the Wallabies by presenting a digitally-altered clip which shows the All Blacks performing their traditional haka with handbags.

All Blacks assistant coach Wayne Smith described the ads as disrespectful. "It's insensitive, I think, to Maori and disrespectful of all the All Blacks," he said.

There is no video of the clip available on internet, but here's a still photo from it.