KEY POINTS:
It was the tale of two hakas, with two strikingly different reactions to the challenge - but the results were the same.
It was all fire and brimstone in the Rugby League World Cup in Brisbane as the Kangaroos advanced arm-in-arm on the Kiwis - getting within touching distance of the fired-up New Zealanders.
But it was the Welsh who might have thought that at last they'd found a successful - if bizarre - way to unnerve the men in black.
Instead of players moving into position for kickoff after the haka, the rugby adversaries got caught up in a staring competition, to the annoyance of match officials who wanted to start the game.
Commentators described the sight of 44 men staring each other down as a "Mexican standoff".
All Black lock Ali Williams looked decidedly awkward at the unusual response, like a possum caught in headlights.
Wales captain Ryan Jones said the response was designed to show his side weren't prepared to be bullied at the Millennium Stadium.
"It was something we came up with in the week," he told WalesOnline.co.uk. "We wanted to show it was our stadium, our pitch and our fans and we weren't prepared to give up the ground and we showed that in the opening exchanges of the game."
South African referee Jonathan Kaplan had to manhandle All Blacks players from their formation near halfway and the Welsh only moved after New Zealand captain Richie McCaw instructed his players to end the stalemate.
The Welsh have a particularly thorny history with the haka. In 2005 the All Blacks were forced to shift the haka to between the national anthems. Tana Umaga, captain at the time, vowed it would never happen again.
When the Welsh tried the same trick in 2006, the New Zealanders did the haka in the dressing room.
Since the haka was restored in the mid-80s as a pre-match highlight under the encouragement of Wayne Shelford, it has been the last action before a test starts.
The Welsh aren't the only ones to have tried to come up with a counter for the psychological effect.
The Wallabies have turned their backs, the Irish and English have walked up to be in the face of the All Blacks while the Lions fanned out in a semicircle at Christchurch three years ago.
A haka expert said it was great for the game's spectacle that opposition teams were increasingly, aggressively going eyeball to eyeball with our national teams.
"I think it's really cool," said Kawariki Morgan. "For too long we've been up in their faces and they've done nothing."
In the end neither response was enough to stop NZ winning.
The All Blacks took out Wales 29-9 while the Kiwis beat Australia 34-20 to become world champions for the first time.
- additional reporting: NZPA and agencies
