All Blacks wary of Wales' 'big midfield' in Cardiff

The All Blacks have shared their expectations for where Wales can challenge them in this weekend’s Nations Championship clash at Principality Stadium.

The Test comes in the penultimate week of the pool stages in the inaugural Nations Championship, with unbeaten New Zealand trailing unbeaten South Africa’s points differential by 67 points for first place in the southern hemisphere pool.

The standings demand that the Kiwis not only beat Wales, who have two wins and two losses to their name in the competition, but beat them handsomely.

Rookie outside back Josh Moorby will be hoping to earn selection for the ninth time this season, having proven his finishing ability already in 2026 by breaking Super Rugby Pacific’s single-season record for tries scored and dotted down five times for the All Blacks.

“We massively respect them, they’re a high-quality squad,” Moorby said of Wales. “They had a good bonus-point win during the weekend. So yeah, we’re looking at a lot of things that we can do better from the weekend just gone; we’ll be attacking this week with a lot of intent.”

Asked to narrow in on where he thinks Wales will pose the biggest challenge, Moorby said he expects “a mix of all sorts, really.”

“They’re a big midfield, fast outside backs, good front pack. So yeah, they’ll be bringing a pretty physical game, and we’ll be getting ready this week for that.”

The Welsh midfield pairing of Max Llewellyn and Eddie James got through a mountain of work in their side’s 28-21 win over Japan last weekend, with James making a dozen carries and Llewellyn completing 18 tackles.

The All Blacks are making some strides in their attacking game, specifically their strike plays. Four of the team’s seven tries in their win over Scotland were scored on the first phase of attack.

“Obviously we draw them up pretty early in the week, and yeah, we really try and nail them down and get all our roles pretty clear in the detail, all the finer detail within them,” Moorby said of the ‘specials’ plays.

“So yes, it’s very pleasing to be able to have those moves and put them onto the paddock and score from them.”

Perhaps the biggest work-on for the New Zealand backline coming into the 2026 season, again highlighted during the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry tour, was competing better under the high ball. Moorby’s selection has partly been due to his abilities in that area of the game, and he says the recent success that the team has found is the result of plenty of hard work.

“It’s obviously a massive focus, and I feel like the last few weeks we’ve been really successful at that, and I think it’s just been down to the effort we’re putting in at the end of training and during training, putting ourselves in those positions and just making sure we’re winning those the majority of the time.”