The RFU have managed to upset most of New Zealand ahead of the Rugby World Cup in September by launching a black change kit. Officials had gained the approval of their New Zealand counterparts, amid fears that the use of black would rile supporters of the All Blacks, but it still looks like Johnson's team will be public enemy No 1 when they land in Auckland. The RFU has attempted to justify the choice by saying the traditional white shirt clashes with Argentina and Wales, and I can buy the Argentina point but Wales play in red, which I'm pretty sure doesn't look anything like white.

New Zealand Prime Minister, John Key, has led the critisism saying "There's only one team that wears black with pride and that's the All Blacks," and several fans have been quoted by various news outlets as saying things like it's stealing their tradition and it's an attack on their rugby and culture and England are just trying to emulate the All Blacks by wearing the same colour as they're incapable of doing it on the pitch. Or it could simply be an attempt to sell more shirts because actually it sounds quite nice and far more practical than the traditional white, and the RFU's financial situation is no secret after the annual meeting.

It's not just in rugby that there have been controversial colour decisions when it comes to kits. Liverpool's blue, or 'cyan', away kit raised a few eyebrows and there seems to be an increasing amount of claret being added to Manchester City's home kit over the last few seasons (first they steal half of Aston Villa's players then their colours...), and the less said about Everton's pink kit the better, but does it really matter? The home colours are one thing, but aren't we all used to designers having weird and wonderful ideas about away kits by now?

Surely the important thing is that the home and away kit are sufficiently different from each other so that the probability is that one of them can be worn in any given game. Black is a fairly common colour for a change strip (and one of the nicest), but choosing black for a tournament being held in a country whose All Black strip is possibly the most iconic in the world may not have been the smartest idea.