New Zealand Rugby Team All Blacks in Beijing to promote game

Less than a week after Chinese President Xi Jinping extended an invitation to a top New ­Zealand rugby star to visit China, three All Blacks arrived in Beijing this week to help promote the game.

During Xi's state visit to New Zealand, Ma'a Nonu, a member of the nation's national team, presented Xi with an All Blacks No. 8 jersey.

Three All Blacks - flyhalf Aaron Cruden, half back TJ Perenara, lock Patrick Tuipulotu - visited Beijing's China Agricultural University, which is considered the cradle of Chinese rugby, on Wednesday.

"It was very exciting [that] one of our All Blacks players Ma'a Nonu was with Prime Minister John Key to present your president with the jersey," Cruden said. "The relationship between New Zealand and China is continuing to grow; that was just another example of it."

The agricultural university founded China's very first professional rugby team back in 1990. Many Chinese national team players and coaches have links to the university.

Last month, Hunan Television's ratings behemoth reality show Where Are We Going, Dad? ended its second season in New Zealand. It included some players and coaches from the All Blacks playing rugby with the kids, which has made the team better-known in China.

Many Chinese parents consider rugby and its US relation, American football, too physical for children, so there is scant grass-roots support for the game. But Cruden suggests that the game is more than a sport.

"On the field you play really hard because it's very physical, but when the game is finished, you need to socialize with the opposition or other players, you build lifelong friendships and bonds," Cruden said.

"I think it's really important, that's one of the special things about rugby turning into a global sport."

Rugby Union, played with teams of 15, is expected to see a surge in interest after rugby sevens was voted back into the Olympic Games at an IOC session in 2009, and teams will be represented at the Rio Olympic Games in 2016. Rugby's previous showing at an Olympic Games was back in 1924.

Even some All Blacks players, two-time Rugby World Cup champions, are eager to represent New Zealand in Rio.

"The coach asked if we are interested in sevens," Cruden said. "A lot of guys would love the opportunity to go to the Olympic Games, [and are] interested in playing in Rio."

But the reigning World Cup champions' major focus is on defending their title next year in England before eyeing Rio.