{"id":659194,"date":"2026-06-26T11:08:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T11:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/659194\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T11:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T11:08:13","slug":"all-blacks-great-fumes-over-damian-mckenzie-and-beauden-barrett-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/659194\/","title":{"rendered":"All Blacks great fumes over Damian McKenzie and Beauden Barrett debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Justin Marshall desperately hopes Dave Rennie does not go down the road of selecting Beauden Barrett and Damian McKenzie at full-back.<\/p>\n

With Will Jordan out through injury and Isaac Hutchinson, who was tipped as a bolter, also on the sidelines, they have no out-and-out 15 in the training squad.<\/p>\n

Test rookie Josh Moorby featured there at times for the Hurricanes last year but predominantly played wing, which ultimately leaves Barrett<\/a>, McKenzie<\/a> or possibly even Ruben Love as the likely full-back options.<\/p>\n

It has left Marshall incredibly frustrated, believing that it would be mistake to put one of the fly-half options at 15.<\/p>\n

\u2018It hasn\u2019t worked\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re particularly thin at full-back and I\u2019m worried about that. If you look at Will Jordan being out possibly all the way up to maybe even the first Test against the Springboks \u2013 he\u2019s certainly out of the Nations Championship \u2013 so there\u2019s your number one starting full-back not going to be available,\u201d he said on the GBRANZ podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre they going to be f*****g around again putting Beauden or Damian there? You know how that\u2019s going to make me feel.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow are we evolving by doing that? It hasn\u2019t worked, so how all of a sudden is it going to click? That is one of the key positions, it is part of the spine: eight, nine, 10, 15.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no out-and-out full-back there and I think a guy like Chay Fihaki must be feeling a bit disappointed as he fulfils all of the requirements of a very good full-back.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to be forced for three Test matches to play a player who doesn\u2019t play full-back every week in that jersey because they couldn\u2019t select at 15 out of every side in this country.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just wonder whether [Isaac] Hutchinson was on their radar [before injury], that\u2019s all I would say.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kieran Read questions Dave Rennie\u2019s back-row selection as fellow All Blacks legend left \u2018really surprised\u2019 by lack of \u2018firepower\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Marshall was joined on the show by fellow All Blacks<\/a> legend Kieran Read, who agreed that Jordan is a big miss for the Rennie\u2019s men.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think what we\u2019ve seen in how the Hurricanes play and how the Chiefs have played with a genuine game-breaking full-back,\u201d Read said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve got [Callum] Harkin [at the \u2018Canes] and Hutchinson at the Chiefs. They know the position, they play it week in week out and they add X-factor.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe because we\u2019re going to have some X-factor on the wings and Ruben Love will drop back and cover that position, they can afford to keep Damian McKenzie, but I would like the fact that we\u2019ve got a full-back and that\u2019s what Will Jordan brings to this team, and it\u2019s huge gap when he\u2019s not there.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just his ability and time on ball, it\u2019s the stuff that he does around it with his voice and vision, and setting up the entire field. It just allows everyone else to do their role really well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marshall\u2019s proposal<\/p>\n

Marshall then floated the idea of shifting Jordie Barrett to full-back, stating that it would bring him more \u201ccomfort\u201d than McKenzie or Barrett.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only thing I was thinking when I was looking at that squad is how the midfield looks. We\u2019ve got a back three which is going to be compromised because Will Jordan\u2019s gone,\u201d he said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got Jordie Barrett there who\u2019s playing some of his best rugby, we\u2019ve got Quinn Tupaea. They have tried playing both those two together before and I don\u2019t know if it was that successful.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a strange way in a strange world, I would see the ability for us to play Jordie at full-back because he brings everything you need to that full-back jersey.<\/p>\n

\u201cWouldn\u2019t you be really assured if Jordie Barrett was in the 15 jersey? He ticks every single box. He\u2019s got a big boot, he\u2019s great in the air, he\u2019s a hard defender.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe gives me more comfort in the 15 jersey than what Beauden or Damian McKenzie does.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: New Zealand Rugby fill \u2018critical\u2019 role as \u2018highly regarded\u2019 ex-Chiefs man lands top job<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Justin Marshall desperately hopes Dave Rennie does not go down the road of selecting Beauden Barrett and Damian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75021,221256,348,3482,620,50,5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-659194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-beauden-barrett","tag-damian-mckenzie","tag-home-page","tag-internationals","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}