ANALYSIS
Over a lifetime of covering rugby, Phil Gifford has seen many of the greatest players to don the black jersey – and the biggest change in that time has been the arrival of professionalism in 1996. Today, in a series rating the best All Blacks of the professional era, he looks at halfbacks and loose forwards.
Halfbacks
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.”
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.
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.
No.8
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.
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.
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.
Flankers
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.”
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.
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.
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.”
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”.
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.
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”.
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
Phil Gifford has twice been judged New Zealand sportswriter of the year, has won nine New Zealand and two Australasian radio awards, and been judged New Zealand Sports Columnist of the year three times. In 2010, he was honoured with the SPARC lifetime achievement award for services to sports journalism.