As the colonial make-believe country, New Zealand, famous for its kiwifruit, hobbits, and attempting to convince the world it’s an actual country, took a unique ‘flight’ lately, wallabies and kangaroos all around the world are standing erect with eyebrows raised. The reason? The Avian Country has just shown the ‘MotherLOTR’ - United Kingdom, a thing or two about rugby. Britain, who accepted New Zealand as a British Colony in 1840, has long been an ‘evil step-mother’ - sending criminals there, stealing their tea, mispronouncing ‘Aotearoa’, and perhaps even stealing Peter Jackson from them. Rugby, however, has always been one field where Kiwis have run circles around the pompous Brits, quite literally, thanks to their legendary All Blacks. So much, it even outshines the UK's ridiculously circular cricket fields. In a delightful twist of fate, the little island down under - more like severely down and a fair bit west - has flown in to teach the Brits how rugby isn’t just a game of mud-slinging and ball-bashing, but an art. Yes, we were also undoubtedly perplexed when we learned rugby wasn't just burly men smashing into each other savagely. In the comprehensive schooling they've dealt out, one might expect a few ruler raps to the Brits' knuckles, which was less a rugby match and more akin to watching a matured silverback gorilla (not to confuse with the famous 'Gorilla Monsoon') dancing gleefully around a clumsy, screeching baboon, more out of pity than anything else. While the British players were flailing and panting heavily, looking more like they were playing twister than a sport, the New Zealanders were zipping, sprinting, and pouncing with a grace that would make an airborne swan look like a grounded, bloated turkey. Even more amusing, the fabled haka, a warrior ritual often mistaken as a war dance where flared nostrils and merciless darting eyes scare every living thing into freezing, did not have enough impact despite the Brits looking quite dazed in every possible angle caught on camera. A vital question now hangs heavy in the air like a tantalizingly untamed rugby ball – is this New Zealand’s revenge for every late-night call made by the UK that woke up Kiwis from their peaceful western hemisphere slumber? Or is it an attempt to literally boot Britain off its ‘I believe I am still an empire’ high horse? Whatever it may be, this tough-love schooling has landed New Zealand in the good books of their down-under neighbours, Australia, who’ve been seen exchanging nods of admiration supported by clinking beer bottles, whispering, ”Good on ya, mate.” So here's a message to the ‘MotherLOTR’ , gather your rugby soldiers still entwined on the field confusing it for their childhood game of twister, and the rest of the world: Never underestimate the black bird of the south, no matter how flightless it may seem.