The All Blacks: All-Time Record and the Haka Tradition

Few teams in any sport carry the aura of the All Blacks. New Zealand’s national rugby union side has spent more than a century as the standard against which the rest of the game measures itself, both for the sustained quality of its results and for the ritual that opens every match. This page sets out the essential record: the honours, the win rate, the individual milestones, and the history of the haka that has become inseparable from the jersey.

A record unmatched by any tier-one nation

New Zealand played its first test on 15 August 1903, beating Australia 22-3 in Sydney. Across the long span of test rugby since, the All Blacks have won at a rate no other leading nation has matched, a figure that sits comfortably above 75 percent of all internationals played. No other side among the traditional powers has ever sustained anything close to that ratio over a full history.

The reputation was set early. The 1905-06 tourists, later known as the “Originals,” swept through Britain, Ireland and France and lost only once, going down 3-0 to Wales in a match still remembered for a disallowed try to Bob Deans. It was on that tour that the name “All Blacks” took hold in the British press, describing the all-black strip that has defined the team ever since.

The honours since have been broad. New Zealand has been a dominant force in the southern hemisphere championship, first as the Tri Nations from 1996 and then as the expanded Rugby Championship, winning the title more often than any rival. The Bledisloe Cup, contested with Australia since 1931, has spent long, uninterrupted stretches in New Zealand’s keeping. Grand slam tours, in which the side beats all four of the British and Irish nations on a single visit, are a recurring line in the record book rather than a rarity.

The World Cup ledger

New Zealand’s Rugby World Cup history is a study in extremes: the first champions, a long drought, and then a period of near-total control. The All Blacks won the inaugural tournament in 1987, beating France 29-9 at Eden Park in Auckland. What followed was 24 years without the trophy, a stretch that hardened into a national anxiety despite the team’s otherwise relentless form between tournaments.

That ended in 2011, again at Eden Park, with a taut 8-7 win over France. Four years later the side became the first to retain the title, overpowering Australia 34-17 at Twickenham in 2015. Their most recent final, in 2023 at the Stade de France, ended in a 12-11 defeat to South Africa played out for most of the match with 14 men. It left New Zealand on three world titles, one behind the Springboks.

The rankings tell a similar story. Since World Rugby introduced its official ranking system in 2003, New Zealand has held the top position for a larger share of the time than any other country, a reflection of consistency rather than the occasional peak.

3Rugby World Cup titles (1987, 2011, 2015)

The record-holders

The individual ledger is led by names familiar well beyond New Zealand. Richie McCaw, the openside flanker who captained both the 2011 and 2015 champions, is the most-capped All Black with 148 tests, an appearance record that also stood as a world mark for a tier-one player. Dan Carter, the fly-half at the heart of the 2015 side, retired as the leading points scorer in test history with 1,598, the great majority of them for New Zealand.

The try-scoring record belongs to wing Doug Howlett, who crossed 49 times in the black jersey. Reach further back and the roll call includes Sir Colin Meads, the towering lock voted New Zealand’s player of the twentieth century, and Sean Fitzpatrick, the hooker whose durability and captaincy bridged the amateur and professional eras.

Ka Mate: the origins of the haka

The pre-match haka is the most recognisable ritual in world sport, and its best-known form has a specific author. “Ka Mate” was composed around 1820 by Te Rauparaha, a chief of the Ngāti Toa iwi, and its words are traditionally understood as a celebration of life over death after he evaded pursuing enemies. The opening lines, “Ka mate, ka mate! Ka ora, ka ora!” translate roughly as “It is death, it is death! It is life, it is life!”

The haka’s association with New Zealand rugby predates the modern national side. A New Zealand Native team performed a haka on its pioneering 1888-89 tour of Britain, and the 1905 Originals used one to open matches. Ka Mate became the established pre-match challenge through the twentieth century, though its performance was uneven for many years and grew far more precise and prominent from the 1980s onward.

Kapa o Pango and the modern challenge

In 2005 the team added a second, purpose-written haka. “Kapa o Pango,” composed by Derek Lardelli, was first performed on 27 August 2005 against South Africa in Dunedin. Written specifically for the side, it references the silver fern and the land, and is generally reserved for occasions the players judge to warrant it, with Ka Mate remaining the default.

Its throat-slitting final gesture drew debate on introduction and was later modified, but the addition served a clear purpose: it gave the players a challenge authored for their own era rather than one inherited whole. Both haka are now performed with a formality and cultural care that reflect a broader shift in how New Zealand rugby presents its Māori heritage.

How opponents have answered

The response to the haka has itself become part of the record. Sides have linked arms, advanced on the challenge, or spread across the field, and World Rugby protocol sets a distance opponents must keep. Some of the most memorable moments in All Blacks history are the confrontations before kickoff rather than after it, notably the face-offs with France and Ireland at World Cups, when opposing teams pressed forward to meet the challenge head-on.

The takeaway

The All Blacks endure as a reference point for two reasons that reinforce each other. The results are extraordinary in their consistency: three world titles, a win rate no peer has matched, and a near-permanent grip on the top of the rankings since they were introduced. And the haka gives that record a face, a ritual rooted in a specific history that turns every test into an occasion before a ball is kicked. The statistics explain why the team is respected; the tradition explains why it is watched.