Jenny-May Clarkson shuts down Hayley Holt after she suggested stopping the haka before games

Publish Date: Wednesday, 4 September 2019, 3:20PM

Hayley Holt has taken aim at the haka, suggesting our international sports teams should stop performing the traditional ceremonial challenge before games ... and Jenny-May Clarkson was not having a bar of it.

The TVNZ Breakfast presenter voiced her opinion after the Tall Blacks performance of the haka was ignored by their opponents Montenegro at the Basketball World Cup.

Holt believes the haka should go, saying: "Why do it? Nobody was really taking much notice."

"Should every single New Zealand team perform a haka?" she asked. "Or is it overplayed and therefore being devalued?"

When Breakfast's new newsreader and former Silver Fern, Clarkson was asked if the New Zealand netball team performed a haka she replied saying: "No, we didn't."

Before saying that the team instead performed waiata.

"For me, it's not about those of us at home watching it who believe that it's being overdone," she said.

"It's about that team and what they believe is the whole purpose of why they're doing it. It's the challenge, they're laying down the challenge."

"The fact that Montenegro decided that they weren't going to acknowledge it, well, that's their right."

Perhaps in the future Montenegro will pay the team and the haka a lot more respect as the Tall Blacks went on to win the crucial pool game 93-83.

Breakfast is on TVNZ1 weekdays from 6am-9am.

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