For three barren years in Australia, Dave Rennie made do. Now, with his first All Blacks squad for the July Nations Championship Tests about to be named, his problem is the opposite — too much talent and not enough jerseys. On Sky Sport NZ's The Breakdown this week, three former All Blacks landed on the same uncapped name as the bolter who could gatecrash the lot: Chiefs fullback Isaac Hutchinson.
The 22-year-old's story is barely believable. Hutchinson tore his ACL, MCL and both menisci in 2025, wiping out his entire season, before returning to the Chiefs in late April. A month of football later he has locked down the No.15 jersey through their finals run — enough for former first five-eighth Stephen Donald to liken his trajectory to that of 2024 breakout Wallace Sititi.
"I've got to admit, I think we're watching a bolter here," Donald said. "When you look at him and what we've seen, it's been a month of footy, he doesn't have an obvious weakness."
He went further on the detail. "He ticks most boxes. I've seen him kick and he kicks long, and he kicks at the right time. He's brave in the tackle, makes big line breaks, he looks fast – he gets through and no one's catching him when he gets through."
For Donald, the absence of any flaw was the clincher. "I don't want to make too big a call but he's my bolter, he's out of nowhere," he said. "His month of footy, I'm trying to think of a mistake he's made."
Mils Muliaina, the first All Black to reach 100 Tests and a fullback himself, was just as taken — though he flagged the one untested part of Hutchinson's game. "Man, he has really stood up. He is waving his arm around, saying: 'pick me'. There's no doubt in my mind that he has got the goods: attacking flair, the ability to step, his pace," Muliaina said. The caveat: "The one thing we probably haven't seen much, and we don't want to see, is his kicking."
Dual-code great Jeff Wilson framed the appeal in tactical terms, arguing a running fullback reshapes everything around him. "There's nothing better if you've got a full-back that can beat the first man because that changes your counter-attack, it changes the pressure the opposition are under," Wilson said. He liked Hutchinson's instincts most of all: "He's got that run first mentality, and I want the run first, kick second instinct to be in my full-back, that's the player he has become pretty quickly."
That a player who did not feature at all in 2025 is suddenly in the frame underlines the depth Rennie has inherited. The selection riches are starkest in the tight five, where he can choose between in-form hookers Samisoni Taukei'aho, Asafo Aumua and Codie Taylor. Even Beauden Barrett's place is no longer guaranteed, with a Hurricanes-laden backline of Cam Roigard, Ruben Love, Jordie Barrett and Billy Proctor pressing, plus Chiefs playmaker Damian McKenzie in the conversation.
It is a luxury Rennie never had across the Tasman, where a 38 per cent win rate with the Wallabies came as he blooded the likes of rookie fly-half Noah Lolesio long before they were ready. The contrast with current Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt — set to name a thinner squad on Friday — is hard to miss.
Whether Hutchinson's month of form is enough to leap straight into a black jersey will be settled when Rennie reads out his squad. For now, the only debate among the men who once wore the All Blacks No.15 is how he could possibly be left out.
