‘Pig’ rugby balls, soccer balls that don’t fly right and numbers that fall off – ‘ssup Adidas?

All Black legend Andrew Merhtens got into trouble when he referred the 2002 Adidas rugby ball as ‘a pig and a lemon’.

The bright yellow ball had been criticised behind closed doors but after playing a test match with the ball, it was Merhtens who spoke out.

It seems the new All Blacks sponsor – sports giant Adidas – didn’t like the metaphors.

There were some highly publisized trials in 2004 but it took until 2007 before they came up with a better design however it was never adopted but the wider rugby community.

Back to football

Adidas’ history is more aligned to football. They have designed the FIFA World Cup footballs since the 1970 event in Germany where the ‘Telstar’ debuted.

See the rundown and slide show of world cup footballs on the Telegraph website.

Then there were the ‘Tangos’ of the 70s and 80s.

Their latest edition is the ‘Jabulani’, designed for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

But it has been roundly criticised for the way it flies.

There were a lot of number 1s out there but Bronson Murray was the only player who was supposed to be wearing it

Latest shocker – Jersey Numbers
Adidas continued their shocker with numbers that were barely stuck on the NZ Maori rugby jerseys.

A special design was crated for the centenary of Maori rugby in New Zealand.

But before the match even kicked off, the numbers on the backs of the NZ Maori players were already falling off.

Strike 3 for Adidas.

Pictured on the right are (from left):

• Hayden Triggs (lock, no number)
• Bronson Murray (prop, and the only player supposed to be wearing the number 1 on his jersey)
• Luke McAllister (still has his number intact at that time); and
• Ben Afeaki (prop, no number)

Players were removing the flapping numbers during the warm-up rather than play with the distraction

Luke McAllister's number was flapping in the wind by half time

The Irish were wearing Puma, having recently shifted from the embattled Canterbury Europe.

The New Zealand Rugby Union sided with Adidas in 1999, ending a 75 year relationship with Canterbury of New Zealand.

The Puma vs Adidas rivalry goes back to the 1940′s when two athletic shoe manufacturing brothers parted ways after the war.

Adolf ‘Adi’ Dassler created Adidas while older brother Rudi started Puma and the rest is history.

On the style score, Puma won this match-up hands down.