The haka being performed before a test match between the All Blacks and Australia at Eden Park in 2021. Photo / Dean Purcell, File
EDITORIAL
In times of uncertainty and carnage, retreat to your fortified stronghold.
And so it is that the wobbliest All Blacks team of the modern era returns to Eden Park, a ground where their undefeated record stretches so far that most of the players running on to the park tonight
were wearing nappies the last time the side lost on this soil (back in 1994, before the game was even professional).
None of the players were born when the Wallabies last beat the All Blacks here (that one was in 1986, before the sport had its own World Cup). The weight of that history must hang heavily over the players – it surely can't be the atmosphere of the Sandringham venue that drives the All Blacks' undefeated streak. The concreted tunnels of Eden Park are largely soulless and songless when the All Blacks go about their work.
