The All Blacks are one of those teams that only really need an alternate shirt on the rarest of occasions, but as is the way with modern rugby that hasn’t stopped New Zealand from creating them consistently, and the results have even been occasionally interesting.
For 2018/20, however, there’s no wonky badges or funky patterns at play with the change jersey – and instead we have a very plain white shirt from Adidas.
It’s not totally plain, of course – like the new 2018/20 home shirt we have a textured hexagonal pattern that covers the front of the jersey is a vaguely ab-countouring sort of way.
The shirt also shares the same new low-profile round-style collar design as the home shirt, and the same embossed rubberised badges.
Perhaps most notably, the shirt features a grey striped pattern around the sleeve cuffs – it’s not exactly a revolutionary design flourish, but at least it breaks from the relentless plain-ness of the rest of it.
There’s nothing wrong with this design – it’s understated, clean and has some nice little details – but as usual the question of whether it needs to exist is never far away, and if it does, why not make it a little more interesting?
Rugby Shirt Watch 