Now this is sports coverage!

You can’t grow up in Sydney without being indoctrinated into thugby. Our great enemies are the All Blacks from across the Tasman in New Zealand.

An Aussie TV ad is currently showing All Blacks players, including former captain Tana Umaga, performing the haka, a traditional indigenous Maori war dance performed by New Zealand teams before every test match.

But the television station has placed large, digitally enhanced handbags over their shoulders.

The ad follows an off-field incident in May, Umaga broke up a fight between team mate Chris Masoe and an unidentified man in a nightclub by hitting the burly Masoe over the head with a woman's handbag he picked up off a table.

The incident reduced a tired and emotional Masoe, who weighs in at a hefty 106 kg, to tears.

The offending handbag later attracted $13,650 in an online auction and made New Zealand players the butt of many cross-Tasman jokes.

But New Zealand rugby officials have complained about the ad.

"It's insensitive, I think, to Maori and disrespectful of the All Blacks," New Zealand assistant coach Wayne Smith said.

Poor buggers, or is that baggers…