- published: 10 Oct 2015
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The New Zealand men's national rugby union team, known as the All Blacks, represent New Zealand in what is regarded as its national sport. The All Blacks are the Rugby World Cup champions, the IRB's current Team of the Year, the leading points scorers of all time and the only international rugby team with a winning record against every test nation they have played. The All Blacks have held the top ranking in the world for longer than all other countries combined and in over 100 years only five test rugby nations have ever beaten New Zealand.
Starting in 2012, New Zealand will compete with Argentina, Australia and South Africa in The Rugby Championship, known as the Tri Nations before Argentina's entry in 2012. The All Blacks have won the trophy a record ten times (in 1996, 1997, 1999, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010) in the competition's 16-year history. They are the current holders of the Rugby World Cup and the Bledisloe Cup competed for annually with Australia, with the All Blacks currently on the second-longest winning streak holding the Trans-Tasman trophy since 2003. They also hold the Freedom Cup; contested annually with South Africa and have completed a Grand Slam, defeating all four Home Nations during one tour, four times (in 1978, 2005, 2008 and 2010).
The term black people is used in some socially-based systems of racial classification for humans of a dark-skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups represented in a particular social context. Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class and socio-economic status also play a role, so that relatively dark-skinned people can be classified as white if they fulfill other social criteria of "whiteness" and relatively light-skinned people can be classified as black if they fulfill the social criteria for "blackness" in a particular setting.
As a biological phenotype being "black" is often associated with the very dark skin colors of some people who are classified as "black". But, particularly in the United States, the racial or ethnic classification also refers to people with all possible kinds of skin pigmentation from the darkest through to the very lightest skin colors, including albinos, if they are believed by others to have African ancestry, or to exhibit cultural traits associated with being "African-American". As a result, in the United States the term "black people" is not an indicator of skin color but of socially based racial classification.