Frankfurt-born Segner earns first All Blacks call-up after Blues' best-player season

Anton Segner has forced his way into Dave Rennie’s first All Blacks squad of 2026, with the German-born Blues loose-forward earning his call-up on the back of a standout Super Rugby Pacific season that left the coaching staff with little choice but to select him.

The 24-year-old, born in Frankfurt, is capable of playing all three back-row positions and captained the Blues for the first time this season — a milestone that further underlined his growing stature within the Auckland-based franchise.

Senior assistant coach Neil Barnes admitted he needed convincing at the start of the campaign but said Segner’s performances had made the decision straightforward.

“He’s a very impressive young man, that’s worked really hard this year, probably the best player in the Blues camp,” Barnes said. “He’s forced his way in with performance, and I’ll be straight up — at the start of the year I was aware of him, wasn’t quite aware of how good he is. So he’s done a very good job of impressing us, he’s got more work to do now.”

Barnes also highlighted Segner’s value as a lineout forward and pointed to the coaching group’s belief that the openside role could be his natural home at international level.

“There’s a good lineout forward, so he gives us a lot of versatility. We think he could generally be a high quality seven, but he’s got a really balanced skill set,” Barnes said.

Segner’s inclusion is the headline story from Rennie’s first squad announcement of the year, with the loose-forward’s rise from relative obscurity to All Blacks contention coming inside a single Super Rugby season. Barnes’s candid admission that he was not fully across Segner’s ability at the outset only adds to the weight of what the 24-year-old has achieved.