Fetu'u Vainikolo is threatening to leave the Highlanders due to 'stylistic' differences.
The Tongan-born winger says he can no longer take the peer pressure from his mullet wearing team-mates who insist that he joins their ranks.
Vainikolo says there is a rift in the Highlanders camp between players who have decided to follow "the way of the mullet" and those with normal haircuts.
"I keep telling them that I can't have a mullet because I've got short hair, but they want me to get braided hair extensions like Lesley [Vainikolo who plays for English club Gloucester] for a double-whammy-mullet," a distraught Vainikolo told the West-Otago Daily Morning Times .
"I can't embarrass my family like that," added the Highlanders newcomer, who offered some insight into the sect-like mullet wearing sub-group.
The squad is believed to be divided into two groups and the situation has become known as Mullet-heid.
Players sporting the 1980-style haircut are said to gather in the change rooms before training sessions where they pull their shorts up as high as they can and chant "mool-aye, mool-aye, mool-aye" in front of a Cindy Lauper shrine.
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