Tale for posterity: when All Blacks came for cuppa

Several All Blacks called scarfie flats home but yesterday Dunedin's student quarter was an attraction for some of the current squad - and they brought tea and biscuits.

Otago Polytechnic student Olivia Macaulay, 22, of Oamaru, said she was walking home to her Hyde St flat just before noon yesterday when she saw All Black first five-eighths Beauden Barrett in a group of men walking towards her.

She ran in to her all-female flat and yelled, "The All Blacks are outside!"

Flatmate Sara Hutton, 20, of Alexandra, "got real excited" but Dani Gray, 20, of Levin, was slower to react, having just woken and appeared in her dressing gown. Both women are Otago University students.

All Black prop Joe Moody came to the door and offered to make them all a cup of tea.

The offer was accepted but the only cups in the flat were of the disposable party kind.

The flatmates shifted drying racks of clothes to make room for the rugby stars - Moody, Barrett, Dane Coles, Wyatt Crockett, Nathan Harris, Seta Tamanivalu, Tawera Kerr-Barlow and skipper Kieran Read. Moody brought tea bags, milk and chocolate biscuits with him and as he made the hot drinks, Miss Macaulay texted another flatmate, Olivia Brien, 20, of Oamaru, who was studying nearby at the campus library, about the visit.