The All Blacks wrap up their week in France’s wine capital as NZ Herald’s Chereè Kinnear and Liam Napier look at how the team has made the most of their longest-ever break between World Cup matches. Video / NZ Herald
Opinion by Thom Gibbs
OPINION
All of us occasionally find something online which we wish we had never seen. This week’s unwelcome incursion came via ITV’s social media team, which provided a chilling image that has been impossible to shake. Nine heinous headshots from the Rugby World Cup which signal the apocalypse. Yes, the mullet is back.
If you missed its first go, around the 1980s, this is a haircut defined as short on top and long over the shoulders, or “business in front, party in back”. You could say the same thing about a scrum, if being a blindside flanker was a great laugh rather than a job which should be forbidden under international law.
The mullet has been spotted occasionally on the campuses of artsy universities for some time, a discerning choice for this generation’s most promising post-post-ironists. But it took Paul Mescal appearing at this year’s Oscars with a pair of hairy tufts perching above his Gucci tux jacket for the resurgent mullet’s crossover moment. Now they are an honest-to-goodness semi-regular sight on the streets of London. How? And more to the point, why?
I have no authority to pass judgement on any elements of fashion, so instead here is m’learned friend and Telegraph men’s style editor Stephen Doig: “The mullet’s curious resurgence, like a resilient horror movie murderer that just can’t be killed no matter how many bullets they put in him, is due in part to the cyclical nature of fashion and, by extension, beauty and grooming trends.
“Whatever was marred as uncool back in the day eventually gets a second wind, and with Gen Z discovering anew shell suit tops, frameless coloured sunglasses and bucket hats for the first time, so too have the young men of that befuddled generation taken up the mullet. Perhaps there’s a charming sense of irony in it, perhaps it’s a refreshing change from the rugby player skinhead cut, or perhaps they’re hankering for a simpler, 1980s-inflected time.”
Jonathan "Tiger King" Taumateine's mullet is probably the most prodigious of all those on display at the World Cup. Photo / Getty Images
Everything comes back round again, it seems. But it does not always reach rugby. Let us examine some of those who look as if they have lost the same bet.
Most realise it is important to smile with a haircut this frightening, because if you do not you will look like a murderer. Samoan Jonathan “Tiger King” Taumateine has the right idea, Scotland’s Hamish Watson absolutely does not.
Damian McKenzie rocks the mullet for the All Blacks. Photo / Getty Images
Chile’s Esteban Inostroza, clearly just passing through rugby on his way to the undercard of a WWE pay-per-view, goes for the rarely-seen bald on top, beard and neck-straggles combination. His yellow card minutes after coming on against Samoa does not suggest someone who is making consistently sensible decisions.
Esteban Inostroza has gone for the lesser spotted beard-mullet. Photo / Getty Images
For the mullet classicists, look no further than Carter Gordon. This is a haircut that never truly went away in parts of Australia, and Gordon, Mona Lisa-like, manages to straddle the line between earnest and knowing.
He has since got a semi-sensible haircut, but played poorly in his country’s defeat to Fiji on Sunday and was hooked at halftime. Coincidence?
Party at the back: Carter Gordon of Australia poses for a portrait during the Rugby World Cup 2023 squad photocall on August 30. Photo / via Getty Images
Not according to former All Blacks Jack Goodhue, who reckoned his mullet improved his game. “There’s actually scientific evidence that shows it makes me faster,” he said. “It was done at Harvard, I think.” Good enough for us, but please do not let this encourage any more hair silliness in France.
All Black Jack Goodhue rocked his permed and coloured mullet for charity in 2020. Photo / John Stone, Northern Advocate
In fact, this is something which needs government intervention. A strict code of conduct must be handed down to all relevant governing bodies, because rugby is incapable of self-regulation in this area.
