KEY POINTS:
All Black legend Zinzan Brooke has lined up Ma'a Nonu after the midfielder criticised Wales' defiant response to the haka before last weekend's rugby international in Cardiff.
The start of the match at the Millennium Stadium was delayed for about a minute as both teams eyeballed each other at the end of the All Blacks' stirring rendition of Kapa O Pango.
Referee Jonathan Kaplan eventually had to push players into position.
The latest in a long line of novel reactions to the haka has polarised opinion within the All Blacks camp.
While some players were full of admiration for the Welsh players' defiance, Nonu considered it disrespectful.
"People back home will have been hurt by what they decided to do. Standing in the way like they did is asking for a fight," he said.
"If you're going to stand there like that, then in the past people would have charged but it's a rugby match and you can't do that.
"My blood pressure was pretty high but then I regained my composure. I was a bit upset about it."
However, Brooke took issue with Nonu via his BBC column, saying the second five-eighth needed "to pull his head in".
"If the All Blacks start thinking that opposition teams don't have the right to respond to the haka, they may as well stop doing it," he wrote.
"I thought the response of the Wales team was great. It was their silent way of doing the haka back to us, one way to stand up to it.
"If Ma'a Nonu says he was upset by it, he needs to pull his head in," Brooke continued. "If that is what he thinks, he is weak. He has exposed himself as fragile.
"By saying it upset him, he has told everyone else that he is affected by it when someone responds to the haka. Who knows what other teams might start doing if they think the All Blacks are going to be that precious about it?
"Perhaps someone will run round the back of the All Blacks while they are doing it - what would happen then?
"People remember Ireland captain Willie Anderson taking his team right into the faces of the All Blacks in 1989 and England hooker Richard Cockerill eyeballing Norm Hewitt in 1997.
"David Campese used to go off and mess around with a ball against us. I haven't got a problem with any of that. It is whatever works for the opposition.
"There was nothing malicious about what Wales did at all. It was just a stand-up, that's what it was. Get over it."
- NZPA
