All Blacks v France: Neil Barnes brings plain talk and fresh edge to All Blacks set-up

If the previous All Blacks coaching regime served up word salad, then new assistant Neil Barnes brings “meat and three veg” communication.

The straight-talking Taranaki dairy farmer doesn’t mince words or milk superlatives.

“We want to get back to the top, win a world cup – but we won’t be doing it in one week,” Barnes says with utter frankness.

He is a breath of fresh country air in an environment that has become frustratingly corporate.

Barnesy, as he’s known, is in his first test week as an All Blacks assistant coach – working with new boss Dave Rennie. It’s not his first taste of test preparations, though.

Barnes has previously worked with Italy under Kieran Crowley. He’s familiar with international rugby – though this is undoubtedly a level up in ability and expectation.

It’s also a significant step up from his last post, heading Taranaki’s NPC side.

“You’re dealing with a different standard of player here. You have to coach a little bit differently, too. They have a lot more ownership. They just take things in their own grasp.”

And they grasp things very quickly.

“Way quicker than I’m used to, to be honest.”

“To be honest” seems like a redundant clarification from Barnes, who comes across as fluent in sincerity. Still, he uses the phrase six times in the nine minutes that he gives the media towards the end of training at Christ’s College’s meticulously groomed “Upper” field.

Barnes honestly defends his charges, too. Challenged on the effectiveness of the All Blacks’ scrum in recent times, he was quick to retort.

“These boys are primed ready to go. We won’t be playing second to anyone in that field.”

Away from the media scrum, Barnes is a magnet to his young players. The tall figure casually makes his way around the group during training, working with halfbacks and hookers, props, locks and loosies. Anyone who might know their way to a lineout.

When training ends, they gravitate towards him, and he extends a reassuring arm across the shoulders of all who enter his orbit. There is a warmth to Barnes and a calm focus across the group.

The work on the training pitch is demanding, but the team is determined in their effort – and they are enthusiastically encouraged by the heavily track-suited coaching collective. From Barnes and his fellow assistants, the messaging is clear – as is its source.

“Rens has been talking about it the whole time, being brilliant at basics. Being organised and allowing the players to take ownership when you get to the end of the week,” Barnes says, before describing his own role as “guiding”.

The notion of transferring ownership to the players at “the end of the week” was also spoken about by fellow assistant Jason Ryan when he fronted the media on Monday. The plan to empower players to take charge of a game that they will ultimately play, shows a willingness to unshackle the All Blacks’ individual and collective talents.

“Take a positive outlook on things, not worry about the consequences if it doesn’t go well. We’re here to make sure it goes well and challenge other teams,” Barnes says.

That positivity will be underpinned by muscle up front.

“It’s still a game of rugby and you have to match other teams with whatever they bring, and physicality is just a part of any game plan.

The first opponent to face the new All Blacks direction is a French team brought to New Zealand by famously bespectacled and vastly experienced coach Fabien Galthie.

They will arrive without a host of first-choice players who have only recently played in the final of their domestic Top 14 competition. Barnes has no interest in reports that it’s a “B team”.

“I don’t care who they bring. It’s a French team. They’ll be able to play. They’ll be physical, and we’re going to have to be at our very best to beat them,” quips Barnes.

There is an expectation that the visitors will employ a barrage of aerial attacks. Don’t expect too much tit-for-tat.

“If box-kicking is what you’re talking about, it has a use in the game. At the moment I just think it’s a little bit overboard what teams are doing with it.

“So, if people want to kick us the ball, we’ll be doing our best to retrieve it. We’ve got a plan around that, and we might even try and use it,” Barnes says.

With dry, still conditions guaranteed inside One NZ Stadium – and a management team delivering a vision as clear as the roof above it, the first test of a new era in All Blacks’ rugby promises to be unmissable.

Mike Thorpe is a senior multimedia journalist for the Herald, based in Christchurch. He has been a broadcast journalist across television and radio for 20 years and joined the Herald in August 2024.