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Grouchy Joe Marler crosses the haka line – and not for the first time

A controversial fellow is England’s Joe Marler.

This time he has enraged rugby lovers in New Zealand (and that’s about 90% of the population) by calling for the scrapping of the haka.

“The Haka needs binning. It’s ridiculous,” commented Marler on X.

“It’s only any good when teams actually front it with some sort of reply.”

The reply from New Zealand, in various loud and angry forms, is simple: “Don’t touch my haka!”

Has Marler crossed a line into holy territory, expressing an opinion about a maori tradition that was first performed by the All Blacks in 1888?

Interestingly Marler crossed the line in 2019. Literally. World Rugby has a rule, as they do about just about anything else, that the teams must stay on their side of the field during the performing of the haka.

Many sports fans suggest that making a rule about something like the haka is unnecessary and it may be a bit silly. However, World Rugby, it seems, feel a day without at least one new rule is a day wasted so the rule exists.

Joe Marler crossed that line – the halfway line – in 2019 and got England Rugby a £2,000 fine in the process, stepping threateningly closer to the All Black players.

Marler has since deleted his post from X, perhaps because he doesn’t like to be called “Low IQ Joe”.

Marler, a formidable front row forward, will not be on the field when England play the All Blacks this weekend after he excused himself from the England squad for “personal reasons”. The players themselves don’t take off-the-field noise like that too seriously, but expect a noisy response from the fans when the All Blacks do their haka at Twickenham on Saturday afternoon.

Image: Joe Marler. Always crossing the line

Source: Planet Rugby