Veteran England prop Joe Marler has now claimed there was no malice involved when he suggested this week that the haka performed by the All Blacks was ridiculous and should be binned.
The loosehead, who left the England squad base at Pennyhill last Monday night for personal reasons, unloaded on the pre-game New Zealand challenge with comments on Tuesday on X, the platform formally known as Twitter.
Marler says that the haka needs binning as it is ridiculous before going on to say that it is only any good when teams actually front it with some sort of reply.
He went on to compare it to the rugby league match between England and Samoa in Wigan last week where the Samoans performed their pre-game dance while eye-balling their English opponents in a head-to-head stand-off.
The fallout from the prop resulted in him deleting his social media account, but he returned the following day claiming he was only fishing with his original comments.
He says context is everything and he was just having a bit of fun trying to spark interest in a mega rugby fixture.
He adds it is a great tradition of rugby that all Pacific nations do before to honour where they come from. It means a lot to us. The crowd enjoy it.
Marler wasn’t included in Steve Borthwick’s match day 23 to face the All Blacks when it was named and having left camp the night before, it is said to be unlikely that he will play for England during their four-match Autumn Nations Series.
England will take on the All Blacks at 3.10am tomorrow at Twickenham Stadium.
Source: RugbyPass
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