Brodie Retallick is in Kobe these days, lining up for the Kobelco Steelers in a Japanese League One competition he insists is closing the gap on Super Rugby faster than most outside Asia want to admit. The 116-Test All Black has used a long-form RugbyPass interview from his adopted home to talk about what comes next for him, but the more interesting passage was a quiet ranking of the team-mates he held in highest regard.
Retallick, asked to name his greatest All Blacks of the modern era, kept his top two private. The next two slots, however, were anything but cautious.
At number three, he picked the man he played alongside through the bulk of his international career.
"I'm going to say Aaron Smith," Retallick said. "Yeah, obviously played with Nugget a long time and just he is an unreal number nine obviously and then just his ability and his competitiveness. He could still be there right now. He's obviously over playing in Japan, but how energetic and how good he is, I think he could continue on if he wanted to."
It was a quietly significant comment. Smith, now 37 and playing in the same league as Retallick, is the highest-capped All Black of the modern era and Retallick's confidence that he could still cut it in black if New Zealand changed their overseas selection rules will not have gone unnoticed in Wellington as the Frizell debate continues.
Fourth in the lock's rankings was another long-time team-mate.
"Number four, I'm going to go someone else I play with as well, and that'll be Dane Coles," Retallick said. "For the hookers, you know, and he probably changed the game a little bit in terms of what a hooker does with his skill set and his speed. And again, he's just so niggly and I enjoy that side of the game."
It is a verdict that doubles as a quiet challenge to the modern crop of All Blacks rakes. Codie Taylor, Asafo Aumua and Samisoni Taukei'aho are the men who inherited Coles' role, and Retallick's framing of Coles as the man who reset what a hooker should look like draws an unflattering line under the position's recent lineout problems.
The 32-year-old also weighed in on the most loaded comparison in modern New Zealand rugby. Asked about Sam Cane's tenure as All Blacks captain, Retallick offered an unusually candid defence of a player who has carried a generation's worth of unfair criticism for one reason: he was given the seven jersey after Richie McCaw walked away.
"I don't even know if I could comprehend it to be fair," Retallick said. "He's um obviously was Richie was the captain and he was in the squad and kind of played underneath him and then given the captaincy role and the seven duty was a massive one to fill."
Retallick's view of the broader All Blacks burden was just as direct. He spoke at length about the responsibility that comes with the jersey, particularly during seasons when results have not gone the team's way.
"Obviously it comes with a huge responsibility and probably more so than not the last couple of years when it wasn't going so well you saw the side of it that I hadn't seen before but then the flip side is that it just shows how passionate New Zealand supporters are," he said.
"As an All Black when you first make it, they say, you know, you're an All Black 24/7 now for the rest of your life. You always be referred to as an All Black."
The broader context of the interview is a player who has not yet closed the door on his test career but who is comfortable enough with life in Japan to talk frankly about it. Retallick described Kobe as a great place for family life and rated the local competition more bullishly than most expat New Zealand voices.
"It's probably not far below super rugby a lot of the teams to be fair," he said.
For a coaching staff in Wellington still wrestling with how to integrate overseas-based veterans into a 2027 World Cup push, Retallick's pantheon and his contentment in Kobe make the case the All Blacks selection conversation cannot keep dodging.
