Has the All Blacks squad been revealed already?

New Zealand Rugby had fans scratching their heads by posting a "possible" 33-man All Blacks squad on its website, hours before officially naming players for the British & Irish Lions test series.

A draft squad, was posted on allblacks.com yesterday, which didn't include incumbent hooker Dane Coles, arguably the world's best in his position, who has been sidelined for almost three months with concussion symptoms.

With so much media and public interest focused on the Lions tour, the originally unattributed preview piece would have caused confusion in the frenzy that normally surrounds an All Blacks announcement.

The article was later corrected with a byline, with the piece penned by veteran rugby writer Lynn Mcconnell.

The Daily Mail had already picked up the story, using it to forecast Coles' omission, with back-up Codie Taylor taking his starting spot and Nathan Harris as back-up.

The official squad will be released at midday today from Mt Roskill Grammar in Auckland, with media companies prevented from mounting independent live streaming of the announcement as they would at any other news event.

The naming of All Black teams is a time-honoured tradition, but NZ Rugby appears to have taken the step of turning it into a right-protected asset.

NZR's broadcast partner Sky TV has declined the opportunity to pay more for the "rights" to live broadcast the announcement. Instead, NZR site allblacks.com will live-stream the announcement, promoting that fact prominently on Facebook and in other areas.

SKY's abstention carries some risk in itself, since NZ Rugby seems to be exploring a move towards its own rugby channel. Today's squad announcement is an opportunity to take a small step in that direction. Sky has secured New Zealand rugby broadcast rights until 2021.

The announcement of the All Blacks squad to face the British and Irish Lions will be carried live and free by Radio Sport at midday.