Wednesday 7 June 2017 06:23, UK
The Blues will perform a special haka to honour Jonah Lomu and Kurtis Haiu ahead of their clash against the British and Irish Lions.
It will be the a historical moment for the Lions who will face the first haka outside of the Test series against New Zealand Blacks and the New Zealand Maori.
Lomu started his Super Rugby career with the Blues and scored 65 points in his 22 appearances between 1996 and 1998. Lomu went on to become a rugby legend and died at the age of 40 in 2015 from a heart attack.
Haiu represented Auckland and the Blues - and made his debut for Auckland against the 2005 British and Irish Lions and went on to play 53 times for the Blues between 2006 and 2011. He died last year at the age of 31 after a prolonged battle with cancer.
"We realised we had something missing when we lost a couple of really important players from here - Kurtis Haiu and Jonah Lomu," said Blues high performance manager Tony Hanks in the New Zealand Herald.
"With New Zealand and the way we mourn, you have the haka or a song. So we felt we had something missing and we needed something to represent us.
"We had one of our local boys that played for our development side a bit who played for Auckland come up and he worked closely with Tana (Umaga, the Blues head coach) to capture things around the area.
"We talk about who we represent across the region - it's about who's coming next and we talk a lot about aspiration and we try to capture who we represent.
"This is an aspirational piece for us with the big crowd, and performing the haka for the first time. These guys have got a big responsibility and we take that seriously."
