Neil Barnes on tightest All Blacks selections: 'You don't do s**t like that lightly'

All Blacks lead assistant coach Neil Barnes has shared some insights into the tight selection calls in the first All Blacks squad of 2026, addressing the established Test players who have been left out.

Some of the names fans were most shocked not to see in Monday’s squad included Rieko Ioane and Du’Plessis Kirifi, both in their prime playing years and were All Blacks in 2025.

Barnes told Sport Nation‘s Scotty and Izzy radio show that he had felt the weight of responsibility involved in selecting his first All Blacks squad, and was pushed to work harder than he had before to make his selections. The former Canada, Fiji and Italy assistant joined All Blacks head coach Dave Rennie and former head coach, Sir Graham Henry, on the national team’s selection panel.

“I guess the media will be all over it: the seven position, you’ve got an incumbent All Black that’s missed (selection), and the same on the wing,” Barnes began when asked about the tightest selection calls in the squad. “But at the end of the day, the other boys have actually pushed the barrel higher, and it’s not so much about the other player playing poorly as it is about the other players actually producing more, and that needs to be rewarded…

“Rennie talked about form, and for the players that made it in, it wasn’t form over a couple of weeks; it was form for the whole season. If I use (Anton) Segner as an example, mate, he has been so, so consistent. I suppose if you looked at (Josh) Moorby, too, his whole year, not just that last game, he’s been pushing himself into contention. And to be fair, those guys have had to work harder than the incumbents to get past them. If it were just even, you’re probably going to stick with the tried and true. I mean, we left out a bloody 80-Test veteran (Ioane) for that opportunity, so you don’t do shit like that lightly.”

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Ioane has been an All Black every year since his 2016 debut as a teenager. Addressing his omission at the squad naming event on Monday, Rennie said the 29-year-old was disappointed when learning of his omission over the phone, but he remained a chance to feature in the expanded squad for the upcoming Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series.

Rennie noted Ioane’s versatility as an attribute aiding his case for selection, and Barnes expanded on the coaching group’s thinking when weighing up versatility vs specialised skill sets.

“Inside of it, you don’t have to have everyone versatile. On the loose forwards, I know everyone’s using that as a reason to count against the player, but that had nothing to do with it, and I’m not joking either.

“You’ve got to have a balance here across the back three. You can’t have all people who just play fullback, or just play wing. If you’ve got someone who can cover both, if you get injuries, it’s huge. You’ve got people on the bench, you’ve got someone on the paddock that can play in another position, it’s good. That adds to the strings to their bow, but it is not the be-all and end-all, or if someone’s a specialist in their position and they’re good at it, they’ll still get picked.”

The next selection call will be a matchday 23 for the opening Test of New Zealand’s season, against France in Christchurch. With four newcomers to the All Blacks squad, all eyes will be peeled on who can earn a debut in July.

“Those are discussions, to be fair, we haven’t actually got into yet,” Barnes said of the matchday selections.

“The hardest thing is you don’t know what France are bringing. They’ve got rules in their own competitions over there about players’ eligibility if they’re still in the final rounds, and so, yeah, there’s a French A-team that played England XV on the weekend that all of us as coaches have all been through.

“But to be fair, mate, these first weeks will be a lot about us and planning what we’re doing through the whole three-Test series. So to answer your question, no, we haven’t actually aligned yet on what the first test team might look like, but that’s going to happen very shortly, obviously.”