ANALYSIS
It’s often said that it’s impossible to compare athletes across different generations.
Nonetheless, it’s a fun and worthy exercise. Would Sir Richard Hadlee be able to do the job against today’s power hitters? (Answer: An emphatic yes.) How would Diego Maradona go these days? (Very nicely, thanks – particularly with defenders’ misdeeds properly policed.)
In the Eddie Murphy film Coming To America, blokes in a barbershop comically debate whether Muhammad Ali could have beaten Cassius Clay in a boxing match.
While that’s a tricky one to answer, it’s possibly a tougher exercise when we look at rugby, where players have grown in size and athleticism across the park. The forwards of the early 20th century would look like mere mortals standing alongside today’s wingers.
Maurice Brownlie was a beast of a man who dominated opposition forward packs on the glorious Invincibles tour a century ago and still found time to serve in both World Wars. Brownlie stood 1.85m tall and weighed 90kg dripping wet – that’s pretty much the same size as fly-half Beauden, the smallest of the Barrett brothers.
The great divide came in 1996, with the arrival of outright professionalism in rugby. So that’s where we drew our line.
We asked veteran rugby writer Phil Gifford to put together a list of the top 60 New Zealand players of the professional era.
Then we used a highly sophisticated system of AI (Asking Individuals) to rank those players in order: In short, we polled our team of sports experts to settle on the final places.
The algorithm is actually pretty simple. Imagine you’re in the playground at school and selecting a pick-up side for a game of footy. Who’s the first name you’d call out? Then who’s second?
Happily, 1996 is a point that brings some of our greatest All Blacks into the discussion. So, does Christian Cullen get the nod over Ben Smith? Sir Michael Jones ahead of Richie McCaw?
Like the blokes in the barbershop debating Ali v Clay, you could take the debate further and ask: which Richie McCaw? Do you prefer the wide-eyed kid who was man of the match on debut at Lansdowne Road in 2001, or the gnarled veteran with bits of metal where bones used to be who lifted the Webb Ellis Cup at Twickenham in 2015?
No doubt, our expert picks won’t be to everyone’s liking – that’s why there’s a comments section. As all preferences were weighted equally, some of our experts’ own personal favourites ended up further down the list than they would have liked, while one or two players finished higher up when their own highly scientific reckons would have them lower down. (How the hell did REDACTED make the list?)
The best bit of an exercise like this isn’t the cumulation of an empirically correct and undeniable list. It’s reminiscence.
Jonah. Cullen. McCaw. Ice Man. Aaron Smith. Kaino! Jerry! For those who love to see this game played well, the nostalgic hum of these names triggers a sweet endorphin kick.
Researchers have found that nostalgia increases our sense of social connectedness and gives us a sense of meaning. In short, it brings us together and makes us feel nice.
Zinzan. Goldie. Brad frickin’ Thorn! Fitzy! Tana! The Saveas!
Enjoy the rush.
How we decided the top 60
Phil Gifford came up with his top 60 All Blacks of the professional era, making his selections unranked across each position. That list of 60 was sent to NZME Sport staff to rank the players from 1 to 60 which were collated and averaged out. The results are what you see below.
It’s worth noting Richie McCaw was a unanimous selection as the number one pick. The number two spot varied between Jonah Lomu, Dan Carter, Sam Whitelock and Michael Jones.
Icons in black: The top 60 of the pro era
60. Pita Alatini (1999-2001, 17 tests)
A change of coaches, from Wayne Smith to John Mitchell, late in 2001, basically snuffed out Pita Alatini’s test career. But for two seasons under Smith he was a star, showing the quick thinking and mercurial running that had led to him being offered a scholarship to King’s College when he was still at Ferguson Intermediate School in Ōtara.
59. Caleb Clarke (2020-2023, 20 tests)
Caleb Clarke’s had an unusual career. There was a blinding start in 2020 against the Wallabies at Eden Park. His running with the ball was impressive enough, and his extraordinary strength was demonstrated when three Wallabies tried to shove him into touch – and he backed the group away from the sideline as if he was pushing off a giant, gold-jerseyed crab.
He then devoted 2021 to sevens, only to miss out on the Olympic Games squad he was chasing. Back in 15s, he was a bit player at the 2023 World Cup. But the 2024 version Clarke looks leaner, and even more explosive, than he was in ′20.
58. Aaron Mauger (2001-2007, 45 tests)
Aaron Mauger was marked as a player of unusual maturity from the time he was selected, as an 18-year-old straight out of Christchurch Boys’ High, to fill in for Andrew Mehrtens at first five in the 1999 Canterbury team. Two years later, he was in the eye of the storm when coach Robbie Deans dropped Mehrtens from the Crusaders, for Mauger. “He [Mauger] is a very mature kid, in life and on the rugby field,” Deans would say.
Mauger’s reputation would potentially have been hugely enhanced if he’d been selected for the losing 2007 World Cup quarter-final with France. He would have been the perfect person to drop a late goal to win the match. His All Blacks captain, Richie McCaw, had seen Mauger coolly snap a crucial 35m dropped goal when the Crusaders won the 2005 Super Rugby final against the Waratahs.
57. Piri Weepu (2004-2013, 71 tests)
Twelve months before the 2011 Rugby World Cup, where Piri Weepu established himself as one of the greats, Weepu’s right foot stuck in the turf at Westpac Stadium while he was playing for Wellington against Taranaki. He was tackled, his ankle was dislocated, and he fractured his tibia and fibula. His leg snapped at an horrific angle.
His comeback was extraordinary. Not known for being in love with gym work and the training track (his own mother, Kura, joked that “he was our runt but now he can’t keep the pounds off”), Weepu trimmed down and sharpened up so well, he became the lynchpin of the 2011 All Blacks backline. Among the numerous adoring tributes online during the World Cup was a photo of a staunch-looking Weepu with the caption: “Piri Weepu doesn’t brush his teeth. He puts his toothbrush in his mouth and the toothbrush trembles.”
56. Greg Somerville (2000-2008, 66 tests)
In 2003, Greg Somerville noted that “I don’t have the size or the weight to help me if I get into trouble, so I have to try to get the technique perfect every time I go into a scrum.” Somerville was brilliant at the hand-to-hand combat at breakdowns. A hugely modest man, he swore his balance and agility didn’t come from a martial arts background. “I’ve never done anything like that. When we’ve done judo with the boys at the Crusaders, I’ve been just... terribly useless. Maybe the way I grew up on a farm, having to throw haybales round, that sort of thing, helped me. Maybe it’s just a mentality.”
55. Tyrel Lomax (2018-2023, 32 tests)
Having been born in Canberra, with a father, John, who was a league hardman for the Raiders, Tyrel Lomax has one of the more unlikely back stories in All Blacks rugby. At high school in Canberra, Tyrel switched from junior league to rugby, played for the Australian schoolboy rugby team, and at 19 was signed as a development player by the Brumbies. He entered Super Rugby for the Melbourne Rebels, but has found his happy places at the Hurricanes and the All Blacks, where he’s the tighthead anchor of their scrums. As a teenager he told an Australian journalist, “There comes a time when you want to make a name for yourself.” Opposing props at the highest level would vouch for the fact Lomax has certainly done that.
54. Reuben Thorne (1999-2007, 50 tests)
You needed to talk to fellow players and his coaches to fairly gauge Reuben Thorne’s abilities. When he captained the All Blacks at the 2003 World Cup, he was brutalised by armchair experts. One columnist viciously suggested he should take up tennis, “because in the Davis Cup they have non-playing captains”. On the other hand, his All Blacks halfback Justin Marshall said Thorne was a man who brilliantly cleaned out the breakdowns. “He’s the main reason we get good ball.” The 2003 Cup coach, John Mitchell, had an even more succinct take on Thorne. “He does the shit jobs.”
53. Norm Maxwell (1999-2004, 36 tests)
Norm Maxwell, who would become Northland’s gift to Canterbury, and then New Zealand, rugby, was introduced to the game as a 13-year-old by a teacher in Whangārei, Te Wai Piripi. Years later, Piripi would say, “Norm was already six foot tall. His problem was that he was only about six inches wide. But I knew very quickly I had a future All Black on my hands. He flew into everything at a million miles an hour.” Scott Robertson summed up his teammate by saying: “When he played Norm gave himself the nickname, The Janitor, because he cleaned everything up. He cleared rucks and breakdowns with no regard for his body. Completely fearless, Normy gave a lot of white, skinny boys hope.”
52. Cory Jane (2008-2014, 53 tests)
Cory Jane could make the Energiser bunny look like a slacker. He made it to the All Blacks through club and provincial rugby, and then sevens, where he was in the Commonwealth Games gold medal side in 2006. At 85kg, he was small even by pre-professional All Blacks standards, but he appeared to have been born without a fear gene.
A video of Jane racing forward with his eyes glued on a descending football, then timing his leap perfectly and cradling the ball into his arms could be used in a coaching course to teach a young player the importance of impeccable technique.
51. Sonny Bill Williams (2010-2019, 58 tests)
As he is to this day, Sonny Bill Williams was a lightning rod for controversy. Yet in 2010, at the first, unfashionable, club he went to in New Zealand rugby, Belfast in north Christchurch, there wasn’t a person who didn’t speak well of him.
The league convert was rushed into the All Blacks in 2010, and he went on to feature in two World Cup-winning teams, in 2011 and 2015.
His fan base was huge. When he had to change a ripped jersey in the opening game of the ‘11 Cup at Eden Park, online viewing of a topless Sonny Bill attracted more hits on YouTube than any playing action from the game. The purist would rather note that as a player he made his trademark offloading a part of rugby culture. “It’s such a vital part of the game,” Williams would correctly say. “Big plays can change the course of a match.”
50. Codie Taylor (2015-2023, 85 tests)
The tradition – first established by Sean Fitzpatrick – of a hooker running with the ball has been kept very much alive by Codie Taylor. When he coached Taylor at the Crusaders, Scott Robertson said, “You could put Codie pretty much anywhere on the field and he would perform his roles brilliantly.” Taylor has scored 20 tries in tests, a testament not only to the control he can maintain at the back of a rolling maul, but also to his ability to step or barge his way past defenders.
49. Craig Dowd (1993-2000, 60 tests)
England propping legend Jason Leonard has said that the toughest front row he ever faced was the All Blacks trio of Craig Dowd, Sean Fitzpatrick and Olo Brown. A teammate with first hand knowledge of Dowd’s abilities, All Blacks lock Ian Jones, says that Dowd was “fiercely competitive, never letting standards drop”. It’s a measure of Dowd’s application that when injury forced Olo Brown out of the game at the end of 1998, Dowd was able to shift from loosehead to tighthead, and play four tests in his new position at the 1999 World Cup.
48. Rodney So’oialo (2002-2009, 62 tests)
In his own words, Rodney So’oialo wasn’t the strongest or the fastest No.8 of his generation, but he believed he “may have wanted to be an All Black a bit more.” He’d rise at 4.30am and hit the streets for a solo training run, then head off for sessions with the Hurricanes. Born in Apia, and raised in Porirua, rugby was a passion in his family, with brothers Steve and James both playing for Manu Samoa. Rodney’s relentless training regime was echoed on the field, where he was basically a perpetual motion machine.
47. Israel Dagg (2010-2017, 66 tests)
His stunning form in the All Blacks’ victorious 2011 World Cup campaign is one of the main reasons Israel Dagg has to be in this list. By rights he shouldn’t have even been playing. Just four months before the cup, he was lying unconscious on an operating table in Christchurch while his surgeon worked on his right thigh, where the muscle had almost torn completely away from the bone as he smacked away a clearing kick in a Super Rugby game for the Crusaders in Cape Town.
“We didn’t expect him to make it [back from the injury],” said coach Graham Henry, when he named Dagg for the opening match of the cup against Tonga.
Composure was always Dagg’s ace in the hole. In 2010, he’d stepped into the test rugby arena against Ireland with the stylish ease of a man putting on an Armani suit. Way too often for their liking, Irish players in New Plymouth found themselves grasping at air that a split-second earlier had been filled by Dagg.
Dagg also played a crucial role in the All Blacks’ 2013 world record-setting run of 14 winning tests. You could see the focus, Dagg would say, when, after a nail-biting 38-27 against the Springboks at Ellis Park, the All Blacks were so exhausted, “even Richie McCaw couldn’t breathe”.
46. Walter Little (1989 to 1997, 50 tests)
Off the track Walter Little liked a smoke, a few quiet drinks, and a laugh. In a game, he could slip a tackle so easily he’d make Houdini look all fingers and thumbs. How he did it for North Harbour and the All Blacks for so many years was a mystery even to teammates.
Buck Shelford, his captain at Harbour, reckoned that it was all to do with balance. “It could look as if Walter was covered by his marker. But he had this little trick of sticking out a fend, then using the leverage he got from the guy trying to tackle him to push himself a wee bit away. Suddenly the tackler was grasping at air.”
45. Jordie Barrett (2017-2023, 57 tests)
Jordie Barrett has only played 12 tests at second five-eighths, compared with 25 at fullback. While he’s a very good test fullback, he’s surely finally proved that he’s even better in the No 12 jersey. Until 2022, the All Blacks selectors worried that he was too upright a runner in the midfield. It’s still early days in his new position, but so far we know that – even at World Cup level – he can carry the impact he makes at second five-eighths for the Hurricanes into the international arena.
44. Will Jordan (2020-2023, 31 tests)
Will Jordan has scored an amazing 31 test tries, having started all but one of his internationals on the wing. What’s startling is that many, including some former All Blacks coaches, believe he’s actually an even better fullback.
Like the greatest players, Jordan seems to be able to see what’s going to happen two or three moves down the track, and has the elusiveness and pace to get to where the defence is at its most stretched. He’s already the most promising player to come out of Christchurch Boys’ High School since Dan Carter.
43. Rieko Ioane (2016-2023, 69 tests)
Rieko Ioane hasn’t played on the wing for the All Blacks since 2021, but his form there in the first three seasons after his first starting test in 2017 was so brilliant that it still overshadows his play at centre.
He exploded into international rugby against the British and Irish Lions at Eden Park in ‘17, scoring two tries. Coach Steve Hansen was right when he said: “That second try, not many people would have scored it, because the guys chasing him are very good players and very quick.” Hansen, with perfect timing, then paused. “He was just a little quicker.” And for the rest of his time on the wing, Ioane would prove to be a little quicker than anyone who marked him.
42. Olo Brown (1990-1998, 56 tests)
During his three seasons as a professional player, Olo Brown didn’t give up his day job as a chartered accountant for a major New Zealand company. As a tighthead prop you could, as one of his club coaches at Ponsonby would say, “have used his back for a spirit level, it was so straight in the scrum”. There was not much else known about Brown because he decided early he wouldn’t do interviews, and he didn’t. As they say, his actions on the field spoke louder than words.
41. Richie Mo’unga (2017-2023, 56 tests)
Born and raised in Christchurch, Richie Mo’unga was a star for three years in the St Andrew’s College First XV. When he was just a teenager, he was picked by Scott Robertson for the 2013 Canterbury team ahead of two All Blacks, Colin Slade and Tom Taylor. The stone in Mo’unga’s passway to wear the 10 jersey at international level was Beauden Barrett, and it was 2023 before the All Blacks settled on the idea of Mo’unga at first five and Barrett at fullback. How good a general is Mo’unga? Could anyone doubt that if he was now living in Burnside, not Tokyo, the Crusaders would not have been stranded near the bottom of the Super Rugby Pacific table?
40. Chris Jack (2001-2007, 67 tests)
Chris Jack played football at primary school, but by the time he left Shirley Boys’ High School he was a lock in the First XV. His coach Glen Fyall would say that above everything at school, Jack had the right mental attitude to succeed in rugby. “I recall often the boys talking after the weekend about the party they’d had in the weekend, how much they’d drunk and so on. Chris often either wouldn’t attend, or, if he did, he wasn’t a big drinker. He got on very well with the rest of the guys, but he knew very well what he wanted to do with his rugby. He just wanted to get on with it.” Jack would follow his older brother Graham into the Crusaders, and in the All Blacks came to be rated as one of the premier locks in world rugby, his lineout skills matched by his crashing runs.
39. Carlos Spencer (1995-2004, 35 tests)
In 1993, Graham Henry spotted Carlos Spencer, then a 17-year-old schoolboy already in his second year of provincial rugby, scoring a brilliant try for Horowhenua against Henry’s powerful Auckland team. “The rugby world’s there for him if he puts the time in,” Henry predicted. When he left school at the end of 1993, Spencer headed to Auckland, and from 1994 was a fixture in blue and white. His mercurial style had detractors even in Auckland. When Spencer opened a downtown coffee shop, Metro magazine mused: “Will the coffee be like his rugby? Brilliant one day and crap the next?” But at his best Spencer was extraordinary, able to beat the best tacklers with an almost laughable ease.
38. Sam Cane (2012-2023, 95 tests)
Another much-maligned captain, Sam Cane is an almost perfect example of how bad things can happen to good people. Cane is as grounded and decent a man as anyone who’s worn the All Blacks jersey. But the fates conspired to see him red-carded in last year’s World Cup final, unable to be on the field for the last 50 minutes of the agonising 12-11 loss to South Africa. Brought up on a deer farm near Reporoa, Cane grew up fast, taking on adult farm work as a 14-year-old. Sir Steve Hansen was so impressed with Cane’s maturity and talent, he fast-tracked a 21-year-old Cane into the team’s leadership group.
37. Joe Rokocoko (2003-2010, 68 tests)
The great Carwyn James, who in 1971 coached the only Lions team to win a series in New Zealand, believed that “speed will forgive and repair most errors or problems in the game”. Joe Rokocoko – tall and lean – was built like Olympic sprint champion Usain Bolt and he ran with the same sort of effortless grace. Rokocoko’s test career tailed off quickly, but in his first two seasons he was a sensation, scoring 27 tries in 23 tests.
36. Robin Brooke (1992-1999, 62 tests)
A hard-nosed, tough-as-nails grafter, Robin Brooke formed a perfect middle-row partnership with Ian Jones that hit its peak in the great 1996 All Blacks team that became the first to win a series in South Africa. Although he actually had a wide range of skills, Brooke was, in many ways, a throwback to the playing days of Sir Colin Meads, when locks were mostly prized for their physical presence. World Cup-winning All Blacks coach Sir Brian Lochore would say of Brooke: “There are some players you look across at in the first lineout, and think, ‘I’m in for a hell of a tough time today’.”
35. Mils Muliaina (2003-2011, 100 tests)
The first All Blacks back to win 100 test caps, Mils Muliaina was equally at home on the wing or at centre, but fullback, where he played 85 of his tests, was where the full range of his talents bloomed.
The son of Samoan parents who immigrated to Invercargill when he was only 3, Muliaina won his first national honours as a schoolboy and age-group representative. His speed and elusiveness made him a natural sevens player. In 2002 at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester, he scored New Zealand’s first try in the sevens final as they beat Fiji 33-15.
As a test fullback, Muliaina was unflappable, impeccable under the high ball, with the ability to pick exactly when to hit the backline and put his outside runners into space.
34. Frank Bunce (1992-1997, 55 tests)
It took six years playing for Auckland B, deciding against signing to a Sydney league club, building up his fitness by working on a rubbish truck, and playing for Western Samoa at the 1991 World Cup (when eligibility rules were way more flexible), for Frank Bunce to finally, as a 30-year-old, be selected for the All Blacks. He was quickly recognised as a world-class centre, with the ability, as his midfield partner Walter Little would note, to make tackles so devastating “they gave the whole team a lift”.
33. Scott Barrett (2016-2023, 69 tests)
The third of his remarkably gifted family to make the best 60 list, Scott Barrett has described playing with his brothers in the All Blacks as a dream come true. Their father, Kevin, an unforgiving lock for Taranaki (167 games) and the Hurricanes, famously joked after he played his last provincial game in 1999 that he and his wife Robyn would head out to their farm and “breed some All Blacks”. Scott, after two World Cups, looks likely to now be a key man as the All Blacks enter the era of Razor Robertson.
32. Ian Jones (1989-1999, 79 tests)
Hugely athletic around the field, Ian Jones was the king of the lineout. The Kamo Kid has said he was fortunate that rugby’s rules changed as he started his test career. “Before the metre gap down the centre of lineouts became law, lineouts were a shambles and a lottery.” It took a while for him to win over conservative selectors and media critics. “I was considered skinny and boyish.” But when given the chance to lock a test scrum in 1990, Jones showed, as he did for the next nine seasons, that he could handle anything international opponents could throw at him.
31. Josh Kronfeld (1995-2000, 54 tests)
As a player, Josh Kronfeld never swam with the mainstream. His opposition to nuclear testing saw him paint a No Nukes symbol on the back of his Otago headgear before the All Blacks played in France at the end of 1995. He was brave enough, before he’d even played a test, to question 1995 World Cup coach Laurie Mains’ idea of using runners one off the ruck. “That’s the safest option,” Kronfeld said at a pre-Cup camp, “but it’s not the only one.” Mains agreed to a daring, attacking approach. And at the Cup, Kronfeld was always the man brilliantly backing up, as Jonah Lomu took magnificent use of the free-running game.
30. Julian Savea (2012-2017, 54 tests)
Julian Savea was in one of the greatest intakes of new All Blacks in history when, in 2012, he joined the likes of Aaron Smith, Brodie Retallick, Sam Cane and Beauden Barrett in the jersey. Savea scored 46 test tries, and hit a stunning career peak in the 62-13 whipping of France in the 2015 World Cup quarter-final. The hunger that seemed muted in pool play turned into a ravenous beast; the best touch was that when the ball didn’t come to Savea, he went looking for it.
29. Justin Marshall (1995-2005, 81 tests)
There have been faster passers, there have been more accurate passers. But if you wanted a player who’d scrap, snarl, fight and never, ever, give up, you’d take the man from Mataura any time. He played every game close to the edge, and his passion led to an amazing moment in 2000, in a Super Rugby game for the Crusaders against the Brumbies. Four minutes from the end Marshall was told by referee Andre Watson to clear the ball from a maul. “It’s still moving Andre,” shouts Marshall. Watson blows for a scrum. “Aw, f*** Andre,” yells Marshall. Watson reaches for a yellow card. “I’ll save you the bloody trouble,” says Marshall, and starts walking off. Marshall’s captain Todd Blackadder fronts Watson, asking what the hell’s going on. Watson, one hand in his card pocket, can’t really explain. “Get him back,” he says, pointing at Marshall. By the time a fuming Marshall is recalled, Watson forgets about the card and only awards a penalty against him.
28. Jerry Collins (2001-2007, 48 tests)
Jerry Collins, who tragically died in a car accident in France in 2015, had a wonderfully quirky sense of humour. He could scare a Hurricanes doctor by pretending he could see Wellington’s night sky, when he was actually being stretchered off during an afternoon game in Christchurch. And a funny, but accurate, reflection of how he played came when, asked at a sponsors’ function in Wellington how he prepared mentally for a game, he cheerfully replied: “Well, an assassin doesn’t have to be in the BEST mood, he just has to be in the RIGHT mood when he moves in for the kill.”
27. Brad Thorn (2003-2011, 59 tests)
Brad Thorn was born in Mosgiel, but grew up in Queensland, turning his back on what had been a stellar league career to return to New Zealand in 2001 for a shot at being an All Black. He was selected at the end of that year to tour Europe with the All Blacks, but turned down the jersey because he wasn’t sure that his future was in rugby. Some castigated him as a mercenary, using rugby to pump up his value as a league player, but Crusaders teammates knew it as actually a case of bedrock honesty from a man of unshakeable integrity. He took a year out from sport, returned to rugby in Christchurch and settled into his role as a fierce, committed tight forward, a man who left his mark on anyone who clashed with him on the field.
His coaches loved the guy. “He’s so easy to coach,” said Sir Steve Hansen. “Just give him something to push, give him something to tackle, give him something to catch, and he’s happy. And give him three feeds a day. Just make sure they’re big ones.”
26. Owen Franks (2009-2019, 108 tests)
“A tighthead prop,” Jason Ryan (now the All Blacks forward coach) said in 2018, “is probably the most demanding position on the rugby field. You can be half an inch off, and everything can go wrong pretty quick.” Owen Franks was a perfectionist. “He takes pride in every set-up,” said Ryan. “An analogy to his attitude to a scrum would be a Tiger Woods putt for a million dollars.” Franks’ resilience and courage were spotted early when, as an 11-year-old, he was coached in a Lyttleton club team by his father, Ken. “Before a game, Dad would look for the biggest player in the opposition team, who was usually a Pacific Island kid with a moustache. He’d say, ‘I want you to put a big tackle on him.’ Most times I would.”
25. Doug Howlett (2000-2007, 62 tests)
At Auckland Grammar, Doug Howlett was a sprint champion, a rugby star and academically gifted. Film-star good-looking, he had enough of a sense of humour about himself to pose, festooned with adoring models, for a rugby magazine cover headlined “Don’t Hate Me Because I’m Beautiful”. His rugby career was a boys’ own fairy tale.
In the 1996 Auckland side at 18, while still at school, he was an All Black by 2000. Just 22 seconds after he ran on against Tonga in his first test, he was over for a try. By the time the 2007 World Cup quarter-final in Cardiff began, he’d scored 49 times for the All Blacks. But he was not in the match-day squad. It was suggested the selectors wanted to see whether Joe Rokocoko or Sitiveni Sivivatu was the best man to partner him in the semifinal. The All Blacks famously lost, 20-18, and Howlett played out his career at Munster in Ireland.
24. Tony Woodcock (2002-2015, 118 tests)
Tony Woodcock was a man so quiet there’s a story at his Helensville club, possibly apocryphal, that his own family never quizzed him about games, because all he ever said was, “It went okay.” Woodcock didn’t enjoy the limelight, and on the field was usually buried at the heart of mauls.
His level of performance saw him play at three World Cups, and the golden moment came when he scored the only New Zealand try in their 8-7 victory over France in the 2011 final at Eden Park. In a move called “Teabag” they’d used once against Australia in 2008 and stashed away, Woodcock dashed through a gap in the lineout to score. In the coaches’ box, Sir Graham Henry flung his arms in the air. On the field, ecstatic teammates hugged Woodcock, patted him on the head, and jumped around him with delight. Woodcock just smiled, kept his head down, and jogged back for the restart.
23. Keven Mealamu (2002-2015, 132 tests)
Keven Mealamu was a fourth-former when his family moved from Tokoroa to Papatoetoe. At Aorere College, he was supposed to just watch his brother Luke, who would later play for Manu Samoa, trial for the First XV. In bare feet, Keven somehow managed to get on the field, and – as a flanker – he made such an impact that by the time he was 17, he was in the 1996 New Zealand secondary school team. As he filled out, he made the switch to hooker and his path to becoming a great of the game was sealed. Mealamu’s gifts extend to illustrating several children’s books. During the 2011 World Cup, he was finishing work on Superhero Pukeko. “I know things are quite different on the field and you have your game face on,” he said at the time, “but this is something I really enjoy doing.”
22. Andrew Mehrtens (1995-2004, 70 tests)
Andrew Mehrtens was almost two players rolled into one. If the game called for kicking for position, and then accurate goal-kicking, he had the 50-metre punt and the 50-metre place kick. If the game called for some incisive running, he could do that too. He had energy, and terrific natural ball skills. (He was a good enough tennis player to hold his own in a charity doubles match involving Steffi Graf). And there was always sharp intelligence, often expressed with humour. With a straight face, he told journalists in 2001 he could “never be dropped from this All Black team”. Nothing to do with his playing form, he quickly explained. “I’m the head of the laundry committee and the only one who understands how the system works. If they drop me, nobody will ever see their Y-fronts again.”
21. Dane Coles (2012-2023, 90 tests)
It’s probably no surprise Dane Coles’ rugby hero when he was a kid wasn’t a beefy front-rower. His idol was the sensationally fast fullback Christian Cullen, who, like Coles, was from the west coast north of Wellington. “It’s always nice to get your hands on the pill,” was how Coles perfectly summed up his own playing style. He grew up in Paraparaumu. “We didn’t have things like PlayStations then,” he said. Instead he gave every sport, from softball to league to cricket, “a crack” until settling on rugby.
His secret weapon at international level was genuine pace. The most stunning example came in 2015 at Eden Park in the All Blacks’ 41-13 win against Australia. Fed the ball by Dan Carter 40 metres from the tryline, Coles wrong-footed Wallabies wing Adam Ashley-Cooper and outpaced three other Australian backs to score.
20. Jeff Wilson (1993-2001, 60 tests)
Jeff Wilson was one of the most gifted all-round sportsmen to ever wear an All Blacks jersey. As a 19-year-old, he played for both the senior New Zealand cricket and rugby sides – and at a sports dinner at the time, his father told me he believed his son’s best sport was actually basketball.
In 1996, Wilson was a key man in the All Blacks’ first series win in South Africa, a blonde flash on the wing. By then his nickname “Goldie” from his schooldays at Cargill High School in Southland had lost any satirical edge: he really was the golden boy of international rugby.
19. Ben Smith (2009-2019, 84 tests)
Ben Smith’s move to fullback was an accident. In 2007, he was an inside-back reserve at an Otago pre-season trial match. Both men in the 15 jerseys were injured and suddenly he was on the field as a fullback.
But the brilliant career Smith then forged for the Highlanders and the All Blacks didn’t have a trace of lottery luck about it.
The self-effacing Smith was dubbed “Ben from Accounts” by the Alternative Commentary Collective. And he actually was the epitome of the pleasant everyman next door, if your neighbour happened to have blinding speed when he ran, the ability to leap the height of a tall building and catch a rugby ball at the apex of the jump, a total lack of concern for his own safety and a strength that belied his almost willowy physique.
Basically worshipped in Dunedin, it took a while for the New Zealand selectors to realise that as good as Smith was on the wing, he was even better at fullback.
He’d played 28 tests before he started for the All Blacks at fullback, but once Steve Hansen settled on him in the position, he was a key man in the best All Blacks World Cup backline ever, the star-studded line-up of 2015.
18. Carl Hayman (2001-2007, 45 tests)
Props come in many forms. What they don’t usually come equipped with is a long back and height. Carl Hayman, at 1.93m the same height as Sir Colin Meads, or, more recently, Kieran Read, was a sensationally good tighthead prop. “He’s just very, very strong,” a Crusaders front-rower who packed against Hayman would once say, “and he’s able somehow to keep his back straight, no matter what.” Hayman’s gifts at scrumtime were matched by his truly remarkable ability to make hoisting a 120kg lock into the air look easy. Sadly, as anyone with a passing interest in New Zealand rugby knows, there is no happy ending to the Hayman story, suffering as he now does from dementia and a degenerative brain condition.
17. Conrad Smith (2004-2015, 94 tests)
Conrad Smith, a qualified lawyer, has a razor-sharp mind and a quick wit. Once asked live on radio for a clean lawyer joke, he didn’t pause. “A senior partner in a law firm is asked what a fair hourly rate would be for a lawyer who had actually been playing a round of golf. He replied, ‘Was the player a partner or a junior brief?’”
On the field, you saw not only his intelligence but the grit of his Taranaki rugby lineage, which included an uncle, Alan Smith, who was an All Blacks lock in the 1960s.
16. Ardie Savea (2016-2023, 81 tests)
Unless you’re trying to tackle him, what’s not to like about how Ardie Savea plays his rugby? He can run with the elusive skills of the midfield back he was in the Rongotai College First XV. If a defender does manage to get hands on him, he bucks, twists, wrestles, and drives his way to extra metres. He also finds the energy to get involved in the hard graft the breakdown requires. As the citation noted when he was named 2023 world men’s XVs player of the year, “his workrate often makes it appear there is more than one of him on the pitch”.
15. Tana Umaga (1997-2005, 74 tests)
On the field, Tana Umaga always showed limitless bravery. His courage didn’t stop there. As Graham Henry’s All Blacks captain from 2003, it was Umaga who ended fire-eating pre-match team talks.
Henry recalls a one-on-one meeting when Umaga told him he thought the talks were “largely a waste of time and inappropriate”. It’s a measure of how much Umaga’s talent and leadership meant to the team that when Umaga told Henry in 2005 he was retiring, the coach unsuccessfully offered him everything from a lighter workload to a year off if Umaga would stay to lead the All Blacks at the 2007 World Cup.
14. Jerome Kaino (2004-2017, 81 tests)
During the 2011 World Cup, a Spasifik magazine blogger wrote: “Jerome Kaino and Superman once fought each other on a bet. The loser had to wear his underwear outside his pants.” Kaino’s magnificent play at the 2011 and 2015 Cups was so impressive, the great line deserved to be true. A quietly spoken giant born in American Samoa, whose family moved to Auckland when he was 4, Kaino himself was genuinely uneasy when he was labelled a hard man. “It’s not how my family would see me,” he once said. “And it’s certainly not how I see myself.” Anyone who ran the blindside while Kaino was in the No 6 All Blacks jersey would almost certainly disagree.
13. Zinzan Brooke (1987-97, 58 tests)
At 14, growing up on his family’s farm at Pūhoi, Zinzan Brooke was shearing 300 sheep in a nine-hour working day. On the rugby field he added remarkable skills to his unquenchable desire to win. He remains the only All Blacks No 8, of any era, to drop kick a goal in a test match. Brooke did it three times, most importantly in the third test against the Springboks in Pretoria in 1996. That kick sealed the test 33-26 and the victory gave the All Blacks their first-ever series win in South Africa.
12. Beauden Barrett (2012-2023, 123 tests)
Although he’s started 27 tests at fullback and has been a magnificent impact player from the bench, Beauden Barrett has begun 56 of his tests at first five. Personable and articulate off the field, there’s steel in his play, which probably dates back to childhood days. He grew up on the family farm in Pungarehu, on the Surf Highway between Okato and Ōpunakē. His mother Robyn, herself an outstanding basketball player and all-round sportswoman, would meet a 10-year-old Beauden and his brothers at the primary school gate, put their bags in the car, and then watch them run the 3.5km home in bare feet. There has often been two schools about whether fullback or first five is Barrett’s best position. Asked his opinion in 2019, Sir Graham Henry had no doubts. “At first five he stands so flat to the line, he’s so quick, he’s always a danger. I think he’s the best first five in the world.”
11. Kieran Read (2008-2019, 127 tests)
Kieran Read’s coach at the Crusaders, Todd Blackadder, once summed up why Read was an all-time great: “He does everything so well, and when he carries the ball, holy shit.” A schoolboy superstar at cricket and rugby at Rosehill College in Papakura, Read was lured to Christchurch by Canterbury coaches Aussie McLean and Rob Penney, after McLean had coached him in the world champion 2004 New Zealand Under-19 team. Read played his first two tests as a flanker, but by 2010 he was at No 8 and by 2013 was named World Rugby Player of the Year. As the best players do, he never had a bad game.
10. Sean Fitzpatrick (1986-1997, 92 tests)
Every time he stepped up in rugby, it was as if Sean Fitzpatrick was born for the position. From the Baby Blacks in 1986, to the ′87 World Cup team, to All Blacks captaincy in ′92, everything felt as natural as night following day. The mantra he lived his rugby by was brief but telling. “I HATE losing.” He worked endlessly on his skills. Fitzpatrick was so determined to get his throwing to the lineout right that his wife, Bronwyn, recalls she developed “a very reasonable two-handed take” from the hours of backyard practice she was forced to endure as a jumper for her husband’s throwing sessions. Throughout his remarkable career, Fitzpatrick was living proof that attitude, as much as physical gifts, is what makes a rugby legend.
9. Ma’a Nonu (2003-2015, 103 tests)
As a person, Ma’a Nonu was never without a sharp, self-depreciating humour. In 2004 he started wearing eyeliner in games, and kept a straight face when telling journalists: “I started putting colour in my dreadlocks, and then other guys did too, so I decided to make a new fashion statement.”
It wasn’t until 2008, in his sixth season as an All Black, that he became a test fixture at second five. He was never dropped until he retired from international rugby in 2015. His commitment can be measured in the fact that after every All Blacks training from ′08 he’d go through an extra five or six minutes with Wayne Smith. “He’d pass the ball to me,” Smith would say in his autobiography, “then double round. He’d let me tackle him, place the ball, chase a kick, bring the ball back, all at a frantic pace, with no breaks. It brought out what was inside Ma’a. He has to be [in] any discussion for our greatest midfielder in history, along with Conrad Smith.”
8. Brodie Retallick (2012-2023, 109 tests)
Brodie Retallick is a giant of a man, at 2.04m (nearly 6ft 9in) and 120kg. Off the field, in his rimless glasses, Retallick, who when he was first at the Chiefs in Hamilton amused everyone by riding to training on a tiny 50cc scooter, doesn’t present as ruthless, more like a genial high school chemistry teacher who accidently drank the growth serum. However, what makes him so special on the rugby field is how he uses that size and strength with devastating effect when cleaning out a breakdown or making a tackle.
In the lineout, Retallick quickly reached a point in his career where his presence alone made opposing jumpers uneasy. The huge tweak in Retallick’s game is the amazing range of skills he brings to the party. As the hugely gifted Springboks lock Victor Matfield said before he played against Retallick in a 2014 Super game: “He’s all over the park and he makes a lot of passes, he doesn’t just always do the obvious thing and take the contact. He’s a very talented player.” At the end of that year, Retallick was voted world player of the year.
7. Sam Whitelock (2010-2023, 153 tests)
Sam Whitelock comes from one of the great Kiwi rugby families. Two of his brothers, George and Luke, were also All Blacks. Another, Adam, was a Crusader. Their father, Braeden, was a Junior All Black and their maternal grandfather, Nelson Dalzell, was an All Blacks lock in 1953-54.
In 2018, Scott Robertson outlined what Whitelock offered to a team. “He’s a great, balanced, player, mentally very strong. He’s as tough as you can get, and he has the physical ability to get through 80 minutes every week and play a whole season without injury, which just shows how good his conditioning is. Really, he’s the ultimate professional as a rugby player and an athlete.” And there’s more to Whitelock than just his rugby career. “You’ve got to have other interests,” he’s said. “Otherwise, you can overcook yourself.” In his case, as well as marriage and parenthood, he’s a Bachelor of Science graduate of Lincoln University.
6. Aaron Smith (2012-2023, 125 tests)
Highlanders coach, Jamie Joseph, saw the potential in a diminutive hairdresser from Feilding and persuaded Aaron Smith to leave the Cut Loose salon and move to Dunedin. It would be a brilliant stroke for the Highlanders, and then for the All Blacks.
Smith’s bullet passing, 1987 World captain and halfback David Kirk would say in 2017, was not only “hugely influential for the All Blacks”, but “has made a fundamental difference to the style of the modern game. The All Black[s] game is built around space out wide, and that’s what Smith provides with the speed and precision with which he clears the ball.” In 2021, Sir Wayne Smith suggested that Aaron wasn’t just the best halfback in world rugby, but the best player.
5. Sir Michael Jones (1987-1998, 55 tests)
From Michael Jones’ first tests in the All Blacks, teammates spoke in awed tones about him. “Michael does things,” said 1987 World Cup centre Joe Stanley, “that the rest of us haven’t even thought about”. The All Blacks’ first fitness guru, Jim Blair, was more explicit. “He [Jones] is as fast as all but two of the wings in the whole [1987] squad. His skill tests with the ball are as good as the inside backs. He can jump to a higher mark on a wall than the locks. His upper body strength is as good as the props. In other words, he has the physical ability to play in any position in an All Black[s] side”.
4. Christian Cullen (1996-2002, 58 tests)
Nothing sums up the contrast between Christian Cullen’s spectacular on-field style, and his reticence off it, than what happened during and after his first test for the All Blacks, against Manu Samoa, in Napier.
Cullen scored three tries, as the All Blacks won 51-10. His first touches of the ball weren’t much fun. First, he was castled by Samoan wing Brian Lima, a tackler so fierce his nickname was The Chiropractor. Then he was hit in the throat by flanker Sam Kaleta.
Under the stand at McLean Park, surrounded by journalists, Cullen didn’t elaborate on his hat-trick of tries, looking almost embarrassed when questioned about them. But he laconically allowed that “those first tackles settled me down a bit”.
Cullen had been rushed into the All Blacks by coach John Hart on the back of a stellar performance at the Hong Kong Sevens, where he was named player of the tournament.
What made him so special? His speed off the mark was extraordinary, as was his daring and eye for a gap. Later in ′96, Cullen played a massive role in the first All Blacks series win in South Africa.
There was an odd ending to a great career. At the 1999 World Cup, to accommodate an abundance of talent in the back three, he was moved to centre, a change that never really worked. Then in 2000, he was dropped, along with Taine Randell and Jeff Wilson, by new coach John Mitchell – with a brutal comment: “I’ve never selected them, so I didn’t call them.”
Cullen summed up the general feeling of the rugby public: “I thought he [Mitchell] was a bit of a dick for saying that.” In fact, Cullen’s achievements in 45 starts as an All Blacks fullback were monumental.
3. Jonah Lomu (1995-2002, 63 tests)
Don’t believe people who say that Jonah Lomu’s star had basically faded by the time his astonishing debut at the last amateur Rugby World Cup in 1995 was over. In the 1999 World Cup semifinal against France at Twickenham, he almost set up an All Blacks victory with two brilliant tries. For the second, he smacked aside one of the biggest French forwards, the rugged Moroccan Abdel Benazzi.
In Sydney in 2000, in the greatest test ever played, he scored the winning All Blacks try, tip-toeing down the sideline past despairing tacklers. His captain, Todd Blackadder, said: “Who else but Jonah could have scored that try?” Indeed.
2. Dan Carter (2003-2015, 112 tests)
The 1987 World Cup-winning first five-eighths Warwick Taylor was once asked if he could see any weak areas in Dan Carter’s rugby. Taylor paused, laughed, and said, “I do worry that he might be too brave. He’s not a big guy, but he tackles like a loose forward.”
The great undefeated All Blacks coach, Sir Fred Allen, said simply that Carter was the best first five he had ever seen. The wonderful thing is that, as Carter’s career has taken him around the world, and opened up a host of successful business opportunities, he’s never lost a touch of the humble kid from rural Southbridge, in Canterbury, where his rugby journey began. A young man with tickets on himself might have just smiled and nodded when a television crew joined him and three other All Blacks on a slightly bizarre visit in 2014 to a group of Dunedin women knitting jerseys for charity. But Carter sat down, expertly cast on, and casually noted: “I used to knit when I was at school. I made a scarf, some socks and some slippers.”
1. Richie McCaw (2001-2015, 148 tests)
From his first test, as a 21-year-old playing Ireland in Dublin in 2001, when he was named man of the match, to his last, at Twickenham against Australia in 2015, when he became the first player to captain two World Cup-winning teams, Richie McCaw’s career has been beyond extraordinary. You felt that while he didn’t actually leap tall buildings in a single bound, he might have managed it in two goes. After all, he played most of the World Cup in ′11 carrying a fracture of the fifth metatarsal (one of the long bones that runs from the ankle to the toes) in his right foot. Perhaps best of all, in a country where the tall poppy syndrome can thrive, there’s no divide between the man and the public image. Being decent to people isn’t something he’s ever needed to work on.
Greatest All Blacks of the professional era series
Part 1: The best fullbacks and wingers
Part 2: The best midfielders and first fives
Part 3: The best halfbacks and loose forwards
Part 4: The best locks and front row
Tomorrow: Phil Gifford selects the best XV from the top 60.
