KEY POINTS:
For a nation that loves throwing bricks, it's curious England have chosen to live in a glass house.
There they were, accusing New Zealand of pillaging the Pacific Islands of all their best players with no mention of their own foreign legion.
In the English squad were Mike
Catt and Matt Stevens who were both born and bred in South Africa. There was also the Nairobi-born Simon Shaw who quite often has his head wedged to the hip of the former Wellington prop, Perry Freshwater.
What about Lawrence Dallaglio - his parents are Italian. And then there was Jason Robinson who was qualified to play for Scotland as well.
Yet it seems the Poms have a different view of their own multi-culturalism. They can understand the dynamics of their own society - that with Britain's colonial past and the European Union effectively a borderless state, England is a melting pot.
People flood through Heathrow Airport in their droves every day. From India, Pakistan, Jamaica, France, Portugal, Australia - they come from all over to chase a better life, a different life, the weather, the tea... everyone has their reasons.
The days where an Englishman could be considered such only if he was pasty enough to look ill and game enough to head out in the fiercest midday sun are long gone.
But the English haven't managed to be so accepting of New Zealand's cultural diversity.
The idea that someone could be born in Samoa, move to New Zealand and consider themselves a New Zealander is still in the too-hard basket.
No one, it seems, can accept that for Heathrow Airport, read Auckland Airport, albeit on a smaller scale. Samoans, Fijians, Tongans, Chinese, Koreans and even the English pile into New Zealand every day. Try explaining that to some in the British fourth estate and they look as perplexed as a visitor trying to work the ticket machine in the London underground.
The source of these cerebral shortcomings is wilful belligerence rather than brain-cell deficit.
It's easy to be the champion of the islands, to sit in judgement from afar and work up a royal sense of injustice.
And it is certainly easy not to let the truth get in the way of a good story. When these accusations are made about New Zealand's player poaching, the rugby union has no need to defend itself for its conscience is clear.
There is no question more could be done to help the islands but that will probably always be the case and New Zealand can only take on so much responsibility.
Most significantly, unlike Australia, New Zealand allows non-All Black-eligible Pacific Islanders to play in Super 14 teams. Australia doesn't - although there are strong whispers that might be about to change.
The NZRU was the promoter and key supporter of a campaign to force change in the eligibility laws so that players who had previously represented a tier one nation could stand down for a year and then represent a tier two country.
In practice that meant someone like Sam Tuitupou could deduce his All Black days were over, make himself unavailable for a year and then turn out for Tonga.
It was a move that would have made a serious difference to the Islands but it failed to get the necessary 75 per cent majority at an IRB meeting in 2004. It is understood that Australia was one of the countries to vote against the proposal.
In direct response to the accusations of player poaching, the NZRU could remind the world that of the eight players in the All Black World Cup squad born in the islands, only Sitiveni Sivivatu arrived at an age where he would consider himself a Fijian first, New Zealander second.
Jerry Collins, Mils Muliaina and Chris Masoe all came with their families in search of a better life to tap into the larger economy and the associated educational benefits.
How can that be poaching? Even in the case of Sivivatu should it be considered poaching that he came to New Zealand as a 16-year-old having won a scholarship to Wesley College?
He too came in search of holistic improvement and arrived with dreams of playing soccer at the highest level.
If the Poms think this is all flaky, that they can strengthen their case by pointing out the All Blacks never have never played in the Islands, they need to think again.
"We do a tremendous amount to support and develop rugby in the Islands," says NZRU deputy chief executive Steve Tew.
"A lot of New Zealand schools have scholarship programmes specifically for Islanders but they offer people educational opportunities."
There is a commercial reality that has to be acknowledged about taking the All Blacks to the Islands. Samoa, Fiji and Tonga are Third World countries and that presents difficulties.
The NZRU get plenty wrong. They are by no means an organisation with all the right answers.
But on the issue of raping the Islands they can plead not guilty.
