Three teams of All Blacks were away. Did the NPC grow the depth to replace them?

On 26 July, a week before the first round of the NPC, Dave Rennie named 44 players for an eight-match tour of South Africa and the United States. Six weeks later he named 34 for the Bledisloe Cup. Between those two squads, the mid-tour call-ups and the injured, the All Blacks took roughly three full teams out of a 14-team competition for most of its ten rounds. The theory doing the rounds in the north, and on this site, is that the gap they left is why Northland reached their first final, why Taranaki and Otago were in the semifinals, and why a crop of new players now have a season's worth of hard rugby behind them that the All Blacks will draw on.

We tested it, union by union and position by position. The short version: the shape of the ladder fits the theory. The reasons behind it mostly do not. And the real depth story of 2026 is one the All Blacks tell about themselves, with the NPC as the place the overflow landed.

Who was away, and from where

The 44 named on 26 July, by province:

Read down the right-hand column and the theory looks sound. The two unions with eight All Blacks away finished 14th and 8th. The unions with one or none, Northland, North Harbour, Hawke's Bay and Manawatū, all finished in the top ten, and two of them in the top four. Otago, with two away, made a semifinal.

Then read the Canterbury line. Four in the 44, four more called up during the season, Tamaiti Williams out all year with a spinal infection, and they still finished first and won the final 43-24.

The two players who held jerseys for a decade

The theory's best example is first five-eighth. Beauden Barrett and Damian McKenzie have between them owned the All Blacks' 10 jersey for most of a decade, and both went to South Africa, along with Ruben Love and the uncapped Josh Jacomb. That took the first-choice 10 out of Taranaki, Waikato and Wellington for the whole regular season.

What happened next is the strongest evidence for the theory, and it happened in Taranaki. Sam Clarke, an All Blacks Sevens player from the Chatham Islands who had never started an NPC game for Taranaki, was handed the 10 jersey when Jacomb was picked for the tour. "It's my first time running a backline in a professional team," he said in September. "It's taken me a few weeks to find my feet, become more familiar with the system, and grow the confidence to back myself." He played 12 games, kicked 59 points, and was still in the jersey when Taranaki, who were outside the top eight before round eight, beat North Harbour 50-31 in the quarterfinal. Jacomb took the jersey back for the semifinal. Clarke's own view of what the absences did to his team is worth keeping: "We lost 12 players for the Waikato and Northland losses, including our captain Kaylum Boshier."

In Waikato, Taha Kemara, 23, took McKenzie's place and finished sixth in the competition with 72 points; he leaves the Crusaders for the Chiefs in 2027. In Wellington, Piri Paraone came back from Japan to play 10 for a side that lost every game.

Here is the problem for the theory at this position. Of the competition's top eleven point-scorers, nine were their province's first-choice 10 whether or not the All Blacks toured: Rivez Reihana (Northland, 119), Harry Godfrey (Hawke's Bay, 84), Cam Millar (Otago, 84), Cameron Howell (North Harbour, 82), William Havili (Tasman, 71), George Worboys (Manawatū, 58), AJ Alatimu (Counties, 56) and Coby Miln (North Harbour, 56). Only Kemara and Clarke were there because an All Black was not.

Position by position: who stepped in

Hooker. Taylor, Aumua and Taukei'aho were away all season, and Bell went to South Africa and came home injured. Canterbury's answer was Brodie McAlister, a Chief, who captained the province, scored a quarterfinal hat-trick behind a lineout that went 14 from 14, and started the final. Taranaki's was Slater, who was called into the All Blacks in August as Bell's replacement, played two midweek games, came home, and scored seven NPC tries, three of them pushovers in the quarterfinal. Tasman's Eli Oudenryn is now being named as a bolter.

Prop. Nine props went on tour. The fill-ins who got full seasons were mostly already-contracted Super Rugby players: Canterbury's Finlay Brewis and Seb Calder, with Gus Brown, 22, off the bench; Northland's Esile Fono and Marcel Renata. Otago's Saula Ma'u, the 140-kilogram Highlander, was called into the All Blacks in August, made his debut off the bench against the Lions, and was back in Otago's quarterfinal side by October.

Lock. The All Blacks took Vaa'i, Lord, Holland, Darry and Tuipulotu, then called in Hannah. Tahlor Cahill, 23, started every Canterbury regular-season game and made 173 tackles, fourth in the whole competition, then went to the bench when Darry and Hannah returned. Fiti Sa, 22, two metres and 125 kilograms, played the full season for Taranaki after six wins from six off the Chiefs bench in Super Rugby. Scott Barrett went the other way: ten months out with a back injury, two games for Taranaki in late September, and named in the Bledisloe squad two days after the second of them. The NPC was his road back.

Loose forward. Savea, Lakai, Blackadder, Segner, Sititi, Parker, Jacobson and Ta'eiloa went. The fill-ins who caught the eye: Canterbury's Dom Gardiner (150 carries, second in the competition), Torian Barnes, 20, already a Blues player, and Xavier Treacy, 21; Otago's Lucas Casey, who scored ten tries, second in the competition, and captain Christian Lio-Willie, both now named by RugbyPass as bolters; Northland's Lachlan Hooper (118 tackles, 13 turnovers, six tries) and Terrell Peita; Counties' Adam Brash (20 tackles in round ten, 49 of the last 52 games).

Halfback. Roigard, Ratima and Preston were away, Hotham was called up. The halfbacks who ran the competition's best sides were Sam Nock, Northland's 100-game veteran, and Canterbury's Louie Chapman, 26, who made 55 passes in the final and is off to Edinburgh. Hawke's Bay's Folau Fakatava, a former All Black, scored seven tries.

Midfield. Jordie Barrett, Tupaea, Proctor, Lienert-Brown, Tavatavanawai and Ioane were away. Dallas McLeod, a 2023 All Black, scored seven tries for Canterbury in his last season before Exeter, with Jone Rova, 24, beside him. Northland's Corey Evans earned a Crusaders contract as McLeod's replacement.

Outside backs. Jordan, Clarke, Carter, Fineanganofo, Moorby and Narawa went. The competition's try-scoring record fell to a player who stayed: Tasman's Kyren Taumoefolau, 19 tries in a season, past the old mark of 15, and now eligible for the All Blacks. North Harbour's Rory Taylor, 24, scored seven tries in 11 starts, was second in the competition for clean breaks and metres, and signed a two-year Blues contract in October. Taranaki's Kini Naholo scored seven and Jacob Ratumaitavuki-Kneepkens "can't be far from All Blacks contention", in RugbyPass's words. Canterbury's Kurtis MacDonald, 22, scored four, and Chay Fihaki played the regular season on the wing, was called into the Bledisloe squad as cover in October and made his Test debut in Sydney.

The smaller unions: was it the All Blacks, or something else?

Northland lost one player to the tour, Simon Parker, and he was released for the last two rounds and flew home from Sydney for the final. Their rise from 13th in 2024 and ninth in 2025 to second was built on a second-year coach, Ryan Martin, a squad he says is 80 per cent Northland-born, five Australian recruits, a set piece that in 2025 already produced the most maul tries in the competition, and a near-miss at the 2025 playoffs that Hooper says drove the pre-season: "We vowed not to put ourselves in that position again." Their Shield win over Canterbury on 20 August came against a side missing Taylor, Newell, Bell, Darry and Mo'unga, which is where the theory does hold: Northland beat a weakened Canterbury, and then lost the final to a Canterbury with its All Blacks back.

North Harbour went from 14th to fourth with one All Black away. Their squad had 20 new caps, 18 of them from the Harbour club competition, and Rory Taylor was the breakout. "He's a great example of what the pathway in our region can do," the Blues' Murray Williams said when he signed him. That is a club-pathway story, not an absence story.

Otago lost two players and reached a semifinal. They had finished second in 2025. Continuity, not a gap.

Taranaki is the one union where the theory and the facts line up. Five All Blacks in the 44, their coach Neil Barnes gone to the national staff too, Slater called away for a month, and still a semifinal, with Clarke and Sa given full seasons they would not otherwise have had.

Hawke's Bay (no All Blacks) slipped from fourth to sixth. Manawatū (none) rose to tenth and beat Auckland at Eden Park.

The honest counterpoints

The union that lost the most collapsed. Wellington had eight players in the 44, with Kirifi called up in October. They went 0-10, conceded 502 points and 76 tries, both province records, and lost 12 in a row. Absence did not grow depth in Wellington; it showed there was none. The Hurricanes' chairman Malcolm Gillies blamed selection policy rather than the All Blacks: "we have our priorities wrong in Wellington." Waikato, with eight away, scraped into the quarterfinals and lost it 62-26. Auckland finished 11th. Bay of Plenty, with four away, fell from third to ninth.

The champion lost as many as anyone and still won. Canterbury's answer to losing nine players at various points was Crusaders depth and a settled coaching group under first-year head coach Alex Robertson.

The playoffs had the All Blacks in them. This is the part of 2026 that was genuinely different, and it cuts the other way. In 2024 and 2025 the northern tour squad was named before the playoffs and an All Blacks XV was taken as well, so no current All Black played in the 2025 final. In 2026 New Zealand Rugby chose not to field an All Blacks XV, saying it "believed it was important to ensure players were available to represent their Provincial Unions in the Hilux NPC", the All Blacks released 14 players for the last round and more for the knockouts, and the tour squad is named only tomorrow. Parker, Hannah, Jacomb, Darry, Bell, Fihaki, Slater and Beauden Barrett all played playoff rugby. The absence effect was a regular-season effect. The final was won by the side with the most All Blacks on the park.

The All Blacks' own depth story is about the tour. Rennie, naming the midweek side against the Lions in August: "everyone currently in the squad will have played on tour", which he called "great for creating depth and competition for places in the test team". At the Bledisloe naming: "it gave a lot of guys valuable time in the jersey." Forty-four players, three uncapped bolters, six mid-tour call-ups and a run of debuts in the midweek games. That is where the depth was grown in 2026. The NPC is where the next tier went to play.

Most of the new names were not new. The 2024 All Blacks XV already included Ma'u, Renata, McAlister, Slater, Lord, Holland, Kirifi, Lakai, Lio-Willie, Hotham, Jacomb, Tupaea, McLeod, Naholo, Narawa and Fihaki. Reihana and Lauaki were in the 2025 one. The 2026 NPC confirmed them; it did not discover them.

The senior press does not expect NPC form to pick Tuesday's squad. Gregor Paul, in the Herald, wrote that "no one has really made their case", and that the NPC is "excellent value for fan entertainment" but not a direct route to the All Blacks without Super Rugby. RugbyPass's predicted 36 cites no NPC form for any player; its bolters, Taumoefolau, Casey, Oudenryn and Lio-Willie, are flagged on Super Rugby form and eligibility.

What the tour did do for the NPC

Rennie himself called this year's competition "brilliant": "I reckon it's the greatest provincial competition in the world," he told Newstalk ZB. "It's been an excellent product and good for our game." Regular-season attendance was up 57 per cent to more than 300,000, social views doubled, and the competition averaged 61.6 points a game. Whether a closer, less predictable competition without its stars drove those crowds, or the 50th-season marketing and free streaming on TVNZ+ did, no source has established. The two things happened in the same season.

The verdict

The South Africa tour did open the door. In Taranaki, Clarke and Sa walked through it. In Waikato, Kemara did. In Canterbury, Cahill, MacDonald, Treacy and Barnes played the full seasons that let Robertson hand a final to a side with four All Blacks and 19 others who had carried the province without them. Northland and North Harbour rose for their own reasons, into a competition the big unions were weaker in. And the depth the All Blacks will take north was grown mostly in Pretoria, Johannesburg and Baltimore, on a tour built to do exactly that.

Update, Tuesday 27 October: the squad

The 36 were named on Tuesday morning, and Rennie himself drew the line from the NPC to the squad: "It's great to officially welcome George, Saula, Leicester, Christian, Jamie and Chay back into the squad. They have all shown fantastic form during the NPC."

Of the names this article was watching:

• In: George Bell, Jamie Hannah and Chay Fihaki (Canterbury), Josh Jacomb (Taranaki), Saula Ma'u and Christian Lio-Willie (Otago), Leicester Fainga'anuku (Tasman), Scott Barrett (Taranaki, whose two NPC games were his road back) and Richie Mo'unga, not expected to play until the second Test.
• Out: Sam Darry, Siale Lauaki, Semisi Tupou Ta'eiloa, Bradley Slater, Noah Hotham, Kyren Taumoefolau, Lucas Casey, Eli Oudenryn and Du'Plessis Kirifi. Simon Parker is unavailable for personal reasons.
• Uncapped: only Ma'u and Jacomb. Fihaki, Hannah and Ma'u are in an All Blacks squad proper for the first time after serving as injury cover.

So the NPC's share is real but modest: six players the coach says earned their place on provincial form, four of them from the two finalists and two from Otago, and none of the fill-ins who got full seasons because an All Black was away. Clarke, Sa, Kemara and MacDonald will have to do it again next year. The competition's record try-scorer, Taumoefolau, "came up in discussions", Rennie said, and stayed home.