Wilson, Muliaina and Donald name three players forcing their way into Rennie's first All Blacks squad

Three former All Blacks have highlighted the players they believe are making the strongest late cases for inclusion in Dave Rennie’s first All Blacks squad, due to be announced on Monday, June 22, at Feilding Yellows Rugby Club.

Rennie, his coaching staff, and NZR Chair David Kirk will name a 34-man group for the Nations Championship fixtures in New Zealand, beginning on July 4 against France — two days after the Super Rugby Pacific final between the Hurricanes and the Chiefs in Wellington.

Speaking on The Breakdown, Jeff Wilson made his case for Hurricanes loosie Du’Plessis Kirifi, a player he has championed for 18 months. “I’ve been doing this for 18 months, Du’Plessis Kirifi, because I want the biggest players to perform on the biggest stage, and he was really good at open side,” Wilson said. He acknowledged the position is crowded, with Ardie Savea’s role still to be determined by Rennie, but argued Kirifi’s work rate and support play have been exceptional. “He might just need one big game, and it could be this coming week.”

Former All Blacks centurion Mils Muliaina pointed to Blues loosie Simon Parker as a player whose stocks have risen sharply. “A guy for me, particularly on the weekend that really stood up is Simon Parker,” Muliaina said. “He’s big-bodied, he carries hard, and the mix of that trio is, as I said, mouth-watering stuff” — a reference to the potential combination Parker could form alongside established loose-forward options.

Stephen Donald, a Rugby World Cup-winning first-five, singled out Chiefs winger Leroy Carter as a player coming into form at exactly the right moment. Donald noted that Carter, who played much of his recent game at centre, had shown the pace and footwork to silence any doubters. “It would have been easy to sell your stocks on Leroy Carter,” Donald said, before adding that it is easy to forget Carter was a mainstay of the All Blacks’ wing rotation before his recent dip in form.

All three panellists agreed the selection picture is tight, particularly in the loose forwards, where a strong final Super Rugby Pacific showing could be decisive in swaying Rennie’s thinking ahead of the June 22 announcement.