One of the nice things about the All Blacks coming to town is that they tell us more about ourselves than a whole year of psychotherapy.

When they look at us they see lifelong losers. The bullying gene in their rugby DNA practically froths and bubbles at the threat of losing to opposition of our calibre. In the long history of Ireland and New Zealand playing the union game, that threat has, of course, never been fulfilled.

And the day it is will be the day a group of men in black prepare to go home in ankle-chains.

They have a view of themselves that is routinely validated in competition. Yet, once every four years, they go into spectacular meltdown. And when that happens, rugby has a grin on its face.

Outside of their own, few people love the All Blacks. New Zealand victories are, by and large, statements of power. They smash teams, then run a bus over the bodies. They play through a vaguely malignant strain of intimidation.

So seeing them get nailed is one of rugby's great redemptive offerings. It's like watching the school ruffian pick the wrong fight and end up with a nosebleed.

During the '91 World Cup, I referred to them as having all the "gaiety of gravediggers". Ruthless on the field, they were robotic off it. The description seemed to cause profound offence in New Zealand.

It was the equivalent of setting off a stink-bomb in a church.

Religious analogies aren't inappropriate either. New Zealanders are religious about their rugby. But then they should be. It's pretty much all they've got. Take golfer Michael Campbell out of the equation and exactly what else do they bring to mainstream sport on the global stage?

You may gather that I'm not a fan.

The Haka pretty much crystallises why. To question it is, apparently, to declare oneself ignorant of All Black heritage. Well, call this column ignorant. The Haka is, essentially, a leery war dance. When the mood takes them, the Blacks embellish it with a gesture that, to the naked eye, looks uncannily like a promise to slit the opponent's throat.

Turn your back on it, as the Wallabies did in Wellington in '96, and you risk being charged with discourtesy. Face up to it politely, as Brian O'Driscoll and the Lions did in '05, and chances are you're heading for the nearest casualty ward.

Clive Woodward had more than a few left-field ideas about the All Blacks in '05. One of them was that calling them by that name "perpetuated the aura". His players were instructed to refer only to "the New Zealanders" or "the New Zealand team" in interviews. Never their preferred name, the "All Blacks".

Of course, he also sent O'Driscoll to meet some Maori elders for advice on how to meet the Haka 'challenge' (and we all know how that ended).

Now we're not ones to hold long-term grudges in these parts, but to hear Graham Henry refer to Keven Mealamu last week as a "special All Black in the way he conducts himself both on and off the field" was to wonder if the New Zealand coach was perhaps being purposefully mischievous.

Ordinarily, humour isn't Henry's thing. But that's never stopped him getting laughs.

He is, in many ways, the perfect coaching accompaniment to the All Blacks. Dour. Hubristic. Adversarial. The rugby manifestation of David Feherty's memorable "bulldog who's just licked a nettle" line about Colin Montgomerie.

If you think this is no way to welcome such celebrated visitors to our shores this week, fear not. The All Blacks come from hard-skinned territory. They exist in an environment of straight talk and withering caricature.

In his fine autobiography, Ronan O'Gara refers to the mauling he took in the New Zealand media after the Lions opening tour game of '05. O'Gara missed a few tackles in the victory against Bay of Plenty and the locals didn't spare him.

"Ronan Keating would be a better tackler," wrote one chap in the 'New Zealand Herald'. Another suggested haughtily: "Kiwis know their rugby and they know a lemon when they see one. O'Gara should have painted himself yellow and jumped in a gin and tonic. His kicking was duff and he didn't look like he could run a pack of girl guides."

Face it, Dan Carter could run around in circles waving daisies for an hour next Saturday and he wouldn't face that kind of guff from our own noble hackery.

Maybe that's the thing about the Blacks. We pay them too much respect when, essentially, they pay us none. And the statistics give them no reason to. Since 1905, they've played us 21 times, won 20, drawn one. They get their kicks out of smashing our types into small pieces. Good luck to them.

Yet, those of us who covered the inaugural World Cup in '87, tripping from what an English journalist referred to as "one wooden, bungaloid, frontier post to another" as the All Blacks made kindling out of every opponent, could never have imagined how lonesome they would be for the Webb Ellis trophy 21 years on.

Maybe that is the only revenge open to us as they visit now. The knowledge that nothing they do here against us poor, earth-bound people can bring absolute fulfilment.

Or maybe, just maybe, Declan Kidney and the boys have history at their fingers.

- Vincent Hogan