\u201cWe are rapt with this squad \u2013 players with the ability to bar up to the demands of test footy but also play with optimism and brutality. We look forward to connecting on Wednesday in preparation for three big tests against France, Italy and Ireland,\u201d Rennie said. <\/p>\n
\u201cSpecial congratulations must go to our four uncapped players. These men have each had an outstanding Super Rugby season and fully deserve their place in the squad. It will be a massively proud time for their families, friends and teammates. <\/p>\n
\u201cCongratulations also to our new All Blacks Captain, Ardie Savea, who we know will do an outstanding job of leading this team on and off-field. Ardie is highly respected by his teammates and cares deeply about the black jersey.\u201d <\/p>\n
Speaking to Sky Sport about the selections, Rennie said they had the 34-man squad selected before the Super Rugby Pacific final and the outcome of that game did not change anything. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re pretty aligned, surprisingly. And it\u2019s not easy to pick because there\u2019s so much talent out there. There are some really good players that we\u2019ve left out, but maybe they\u2019ll get an opportunity when we take 44 to Africa. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re excited with the group we\u2019ve chosen. We\u2019re really comfortable…we had picked 34 guys before that [Super Rugby Pacific] final and that didn\u2019t change so it\u2019s exciting to see them all on Wednesday.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe are rapt with this squad \u2013 players with the ability to bar up to the demands of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[5263,9526,8136,18239,16123,9635,273,6119,1888,3011,78,15258,19755,10136,16556,17154,117,111,139,69,10538,10702,183683,29647,213,1557,187620,765,223,61,183366,102],"class_list":["post-489142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-all","tag-another","tag-blacks","tag-championship","tag-cover","tag-dave","tag-environment","tag-faces","tag-first","tag-four","tag-in","tag-injury","tag-join","tag-named","tag-naming","tag-nations","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-play","tag-players","tag-rennies","tag-sees","tag-sports","tag-squad","tag-tenure","tag-test","tag-the","tag-to","tag-uncapped","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}