All Blacks have big hearts. All Black Tours, not so much.

A Trade Me charity auction to raise funds to feed hungry New Zealand school children was today shut down by All Black Tours, New Zealand General Manager, David Caldwell.

All Black Tours is a 100% foreign-owned commercial travel company exclusively appointed by the New Zealand Rugby Union to manage All Black supporters travel.

The Trade Me charity auction prize was for a $40,000 travel package including two tickets to the Japan World Cup 2019 Semi Finals and Finals.

The prize package was generously donated to the Sir Ray Avery Foundation by Hello World Travel, NZ, to use as it wished.

We thought the best way we could redeem the prize and fasted way to get good nutrition into the 20% of New Zealand kids who go to school hungry without breakfast or lunch was to put the prize up for Auction on Trade Me.

Things were going fantastically well. Within three days more than 15,000 people had viewed the prize and bids had already reached $14,500 but Nek Minute All Black Travel directed us to shut down the auction.

David Cladwell cited a clause in the Terms and Conditions fine print which prohibited the marketing of a donated ticket and directed us to close down the auction. Which, sadly we have done today.

I want to apologise to Trade Me and it's customers who viewed or bid on the auction. Trust me, I tried everything I could to keep the auction alive including contacting Steve Tew, the CEO of Rugby New Zealand who did not respond to our request for help.

Over the past twenty years, I have had a very privileged relationship with the All Black Team and management.

Individual All Blacks like Sonny Bill Williams and Ritchie McCaw and many others have historically generously donated goods to auction t support the Foundation's work, and from time to time when I have been called upon to provide motivational team coaching to the "boys", I think I may have come away more inspired than they did.

The All Blacks are clever, powerful men and when you have seen them practice the Haka in the confines of a conference room, the sound is unforgettable and makes your heart burst with pride.

The rights to internationally market one of our best sporting assets have been assigned to a foreign-owned travel company and I wonder if a New Zealand travel company would have closed down the auction knowing that the proceeds of the auction would produce around 40,000 Amigo Nutrition Bars to feed hungry kids in need throughout New Zealand.