All Blacks - Jersey

Jersey

The Adidas Jersey worn between July 1999 and August 2011

The current New Zealand jersey is entirely black except for a white collar, and with the Adidas logo and the NZRU silver fern on the front. The 1884 New Zealand tour to Australia was the first overseas New Zealand rugby tour, and featured clothing very different from today's jersey. Back then, the team donned a dark blue jersey, with gold fern on the left of the jumper. In 1893 the NZRU stipulated at its annual general meeting that the uniform would be black jersey with a silver fern and white knickerbockers. However historic photographs suggest white shorts may have been used instead during these early years. Sometime between 1897 and 1901 there was a change; by 1901 the team met NSW in a black jersey, a canvas top with no collar, and a silver fern.

Recently it has become traditional for New Zealand to wear an embroidered poppy on their jersey sleeve when playing France during the end-of-year tours. The poppy honours the soldiers who died in the battlefields of Europe. Captain Richie McCaw said "We want to honour the overseas service of New Zealanders. It is an important part of our history as a country and a team."

Adidas currently pays the NZRFU $200 million over 9 years, expecting New Zealand to win around 75% of their matches. Nike also looked at sponsoring New Zealand in 1996, but went with Tiger Woods instead.

The change kit has traditionally been white with black shorts. After a few years playing with a change kit of grey shirt and black shorts, the NZRU announced a return to the traditional white jersey and black shorts in May 2009.

2011 saw a revolution of old and new. 30 July revealed a new All Black jersey with white standup collar at the Springboks match in Wellington. The white collar is said to be honouring the 1987 world-cup-winning team. Adidas has claimed that the performance in the jersey is 1 – 50% better than its predecessor.

In 2012, the NZRU took the controversial step of allowing American insurance and financial services company, AIG, to promote their brand on the center-front of the All Black jersey. In return, the union would receive direct financial sponsorship, rumoured to be in the vicinity of 20 million dollars per year, for five years. This was largely met with negative public reaction.