Fired-up video of ex-All Blacks NYE with Springbok Etzebeth goes viral

Their team may be steadily losing ground in the French Top 14 but that didn’t keep former All Blacks Liam Messam and Julian Savea from ringing in the new year in entertaining style.

The pair, who have played a combined 97 tests for the All Blacks, were filmed partying up a storm with a group of people including World Cup-winning Springbok lock Eben Etzebeth and his partner Ashley Rothman.

The clip, which has been viewed more than 100,000 times on YouTube, shows Messam and Savea joining Etzebeth in a near-perfect rendition of the South African national anthem Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika.

They then proceed to perform a haka for their guests, with Etzebeth playing up to the “standoff” with a series of bizarre facial expressions – much to the amusement of other guests.

While Messam and Savea have both spent a couple of seasons at Toulon, Etzebeth – who led the Boks to a third World Cup triumph in Japan with a crushing final victory over England – only recently joined the club, putting in a man of the match performance in his debut against Clermont.

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Toulon have won eight of their last nine matches but find themselves eleven points adrift of league leaders Bordeaux Begles after twelve matches.

Messam quit the All Blacks after the 2015 World Cup and joined Toulon in 2018. Savea, the joint-second leading try scorer in All Blacks history with 46, has endured a tumultuous start to his Toulon career with outspoken club boss Mourad Boudjellal publicly criticising the winger for his form last season.

– New Zealand Herald 

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