How Anton Segner became the first German All Black

Wednesday, 1 July 2026

Frankfurt-born loose forward Anton Segner has achieved his 15-year dream after being named as a new cap in the All Blacks squad by coach Dave Rennie.

The 24-year-old was indoctrinated into Kiwi culture as a child by former New Zealand players coaching at local rugby club Frankfurt 1880.

Segner overcame severe physical hurdles to reach the sport's pinnacle, including childhood surgeries to correct heavily knocked knees before moving to Nelson College at age 15.

The historic selection makes Segner the first German-born player to be named in the All Blacks.

When Anton Segner’s name was called out in Dave Rennie’s first All Blacks squad, it was the realisation of a lifetime dream. The Blues star is set to become the first German All Black and, as Louis Herman-Watt found out in Frankfurt, it’s something that was equally as improbable as inevitable.

As far as two missed phone calls in the middle of the night from your child on the other side of the world go, best-case scenario would be an understatement for Tim and Eva Segner, parents of All Blacks new cap Anton.

Sitting in the Segner’s cosy kitchen in Frankfurt, more than 18,000 kilometres away from New Zealand, Tim explains, “it still feels very unreal … yeah surreal.”

It doesn’t seem like it’s because we’re speaking in his second language that Tim is searching for words.

From a “chubby” German kid with knocked knees to a workhorse loose forward whose form Dave Rennie claimed was too “irresistible” to ignore, the 24-year-old’s journey is a fascinating mix of self-determination and familial willingness.

Selecting his first All Blacks squad, Rennie openly said Segner “had his name in bold with us a long time out”.

While Rennie might have had the German flanker on his radar for some time due to career-best form in Super Rugby, it’s unlikely it would compare with Anton’s own 15-year vision of becoming an All Black.

So why, and how, did this round-ball football-loving Deutscher Junge (German lad) decide the average Kiwi kid’s dream should be his, too?

‘Talk like a Kiwi, eat like a Kiwi, dress like a Kiwi’

After being introduced to rugby by two English friends at an International School in Frankfurt, a naturally large Segner quickly realised the physicality of the sport was for him.

Despite Germany not being known for its rugby culture, one of the first pivotal breaks in fortune was Segner’s local rugby club, Frankfurt 1880, undergoing a transition to fund its junior programme, led by businessman and former professional rugby player Uli Byszio.

The change in direction resulted in formerly contracted New Zealand players staying on in Frankfurt as junior coaches.

Asking Eva Segner, Anton’s mother, how odd it is to have a New Zealand journalist sitting in her kitchen, it prompts memories of the early days in the family’s rugby awakening.

“I have to say a lot of strange men, New Zealand men, sat already in the kitchen before.

“Because he [Anton] embraced and inhaled the New Zealand culture so much when he started playing rugby, more or less the coaches also came here for dinner, because I wanted to know who he spends the time with and why he thinks they are so fantastic.

“Everything they said, anything they did, he was soaking [it in], and they were funny people,” Eva remembers.

One of those “funny people” is Kieran Manawatu, who was lured to Frankfurt 1880 by his brother Tim Manawatu as a player in 2008.

Kieran went on to play for the German national team and live in Germany for 13 years, many of which as an influential mentor of the club’s youth.

Like Eva, Manawatu recalls the way a young Anton Segner became enamoured with the Kiwi way of life.

“We just had this German kid that just fell in love with rugby and was so addicted to it, and because we were his coaches, he just followed us and did everything that we wanted to do.

“We wore shorts in the cold winter and we used to get some funny looks from the Germans, but so did Anton.”

“He just wanted to live like a Kiwi, and so he just copied us,” Kieran fondly recollected.

While it’s not unusual for kids to imitate their idols, the extent of Anton’s dedication to the New Zealand cause caught even his immediate family members off guard.

Returning home from training, pleading with his parents that he needed “flip flops and wellys” (jandals and gumboots), asking to eat strange “cakes” (pies), and even jolting his German school’s Christmas concert awake with a stirring haka, which the passionate youngster had learnt from YouTube.

Being Kiwi was now a lifestyle.

Perhaps the most convincing sign this was more than a phase was his pledge to cut out sugary drinks after coach Tim Manawatu, most likely offhandedly, said, “All Blacks don’t drink fizzy”.

“He never had a sip, even not a sip of alcohol yet, or after, I don't know, since he's ten-years-old or something, never had a Coca-Cola. No sweets at all,” Tim Segner confirms.

“Talk like a Kiwi, eat like a Kiwi, dress like a Kiwi,” he adds.

Anton was now indoctrinated, and not by South Africans or Australians, right Eva?

“Thank god no, the New Zealanders were first.”

‘Phoenix out of the ashes’

“Ploughing,” is how Uli Byszio describes the first time he saw a 10-year-old Segner at an 1880 training session.

“He left the path of devastation behind him,” he states frankly.

Despite having found the sport for his size and appetite for contact, there was a major physical hurdle to overcome.

Segner had two severely knocked knees that required surgery with plates and screws inserted to close the growth plates.

Running wasn’t possible for roughly two months, but once his body responded, he grew 20cm by age 11.

As Eva remembers, “suddenly, you know, comes like a Phoenix out of the ashes and is so successful”.

With straight legs and a rapid growth spurt came speed. From the front row as a prop, Kieran and Tim Manawatu had no qualms moving him to the loose forwards where the devastation intensified.

“When he was [in his] second year under-14, we had to move him to the under-16s because he was hurting the kids,” Kieran Manawatu said.

“The problem was he started hurting the under-16s as well.”

It got to the stage that a rampaging Segner would start running toward scattered defenders to break their tackles, according to Byszio, “because he just had so much fun bumping people like Jonah Lomu”.

While his physical gifts flourished, Tim Segner recalls his son’s mentality began peaking to an almost concerning level.

“During his time in Germany, he didn't laugh .. he was just always focused in training and getting better every day.”

“Even if his team-mates were joking around, he said, okay stop it please, we have to do some work here.“

“He didn't like jokes. He was just focused on playing rugby,” Tim added.

‘Okay, that's a weird idea’

When an opportunity to move to the other side of the world and fulfil part one of Anton Segner’s dream (to play rugby in New Zealand) arose through Tim Manawatu and Nelson College, it doesn’t take Sherlock to work out what the then 15-year-old thought about it.

“Yeah, there was no chance to stop him,” Tim Segner said of his son’s burning desire to go.

“He said, ‘I want to go there,’ and first you think, ‘okay that's a weird idea’, and then you start working on it, and then ‘okay, we understand it's your big dream’.”

Kieran Manawatu says it's hard for Kiwis to consider Germany as a country capable of preparing a 15-year-old for first XV rugby in New Zealand, but Frankfurt 1880 wasn’t a typical club.

“He was in a really good team that we built up from under-12s. I took them to South Africa, and they competed against a very good South African team.

“He was coming to Nelson and playing with Kiwi kids, but he was already at a good level, where he was. He was ready to go.”

After winning the UC Championship with Nelson College as captain, Segner told Stuff in 2019 that he did have doubts about whether he’d be good enough for first XV rugby.

'Then I went to the first training and I thought if I did my best and played to my potential I could crack it, and fortunately enough I was able to make the first XV that year.'

For his family, this came as a big relief. “He started to laugh again, which made us very happy,” Tim said.

While the sense of belonging was welcomed, the first drop off 18,000 kilometres from home still, unsurprisingly, had its emotional complications for mum.

“It broke my heart even twice because of course, if you're like that in school, if you're so principled, you always get bullied because they try to pull you on the bad side,” Eva said with wide eyes.

“So when I went to Nelson College and I dropped him off and I saw this long aisle with 30 beds and only a curtain, I was like, ‘oh you really want to stay?’ And he was like, ‘if it takes this to be an All Black, I'm staying.’”

Recounting her concerns six months later to Anton’s Nelson College team-mate and close friend, Leicester Faingaʻanuku, Eva said, “Leicester had to laugh so hard. He said, ‘Why in the world would we do that to someone like Anton?’”

The 30-bed dormitory at Nelson College was a totally different environment but Segner’s progression on the field maintained the same steep arc as in Frankfurt.

Growing with confidence and better competition, he was selected in New Zealand Schools in 2018, then the New Zealand U20s before earning his first professional contract with Tasman in 2020. Ultimately, moving north for a Super Rugby contract from the Blues.

‘Someone like Anton’

The more one learns about Anton Segner, the more one’s head begins to shake in minor astonishment. That was this journalist’s experience anyway.

It’s understood there’s certainly an element of delusion, or more kindly put, extreme belief, that comes with any high-performing athlete. But for a 10-year-old boy in Germany to decide he’s going to become an All Black, and then do it?

Spending an afternoon and evening with Tim and Eva in Frankfurt, it doesn’t take long to understand that the whole Segner family have been taken for a spin by Anton’s confronting ambition.

The 24-year-old is the middle son of three boys; Fritz is the eldest, Emil the youngest, and asked if his leadership qualities and self-assuredness were always a staple at home, Eva jumps to answer.

“Ja! He was definitely the policeman in the family. He was like ‘oh, we have to turn off the lights, that costs money!’”

While Tim and Eva Segner’s relaxed and engaging personalities are great fun over a Frankfurter schnitzel dinner, they have also undoubtedly balanced Anton’s self-determined journey while shouldering understandable stresses, including three years of Covid distance and the constant possibility of injury.

“I can't watch live, oh god, it kills me when we watch… Even if I step right away in the plane, I'm only there in 30 hours,” Eva says with a visible tinge of anxiety.

Anton’s All Black’s obsession made sure she’s had many years of processing these thoughts.

“When I had to read the night-time stories to him under this All Blacks jersey [hanging on the wall], I was always looking up at all those players, especially Sam Whitelock and went like, ‘oh my God, I hope he never is gonna meet those people, they are so big and tall,’ and then yeah, here we go,” she said.

Eva was keen to point out she did actually end up meeting Sam Whitelock by chance, and they bonded over their shared passion for knitting.

‘Only the start’

When Anton Segner managed to reach his family on the third call and share the news that Dave Rennie had broken to him, time zones became irrelevant. It was a dream realised for everyone.

But everyone who understands Anton understands the dream isn’t over.

“I am certain that this is only the start for him,” the influential Uli Byszio declared.

“He's become maybe a little bit more relaxed, but he never, never, never leaves focus.

“He's got that Kiwi slang, but inside he's dead German stainless steel.”

Tim and Kieran Manawatu, the coaches who lit the Kiwi bonfire, are back in New Zealand and following Segner’s career as closely as they did when they coached him.

Kieran is confident the extra size the energetic flanker has amassed will continue to help him progress, while adding an interesting observation.

“Yeah, his head's growing.

“Every time I see him, I'm like, ‘you've got big, and your melon is getting bigger, too.’”

Segner’s All Blacks journey will almost certainly start playing behind his new captain, Ardie Savea, “and Ardie Savea was his favourite player,” Manawatu says in disbelief at one last serendipitous piece to the puzzle.

Just like most things with Anton Segner till this point, it’s something that was equally as improbable as inevitable.