Codie Taylor: the league kid from Levin who became the All Blacks' captain

When the All Blacks run out at Murrayfield this weekend, the man leading them will be a hooker who learned his football on rugby league fields in Australia, who did not start a Test until his second season in black, and who has outlasted every rival to become the eighth most-capped All Black of all time. Codie Taylor, 35, has 114 Tests, 25 Test tries (the most by any All Blacks hooker) and, since September, the captaincy. This is the story of how a boy from Levin got there.

Where he comes from

Taylor was born in Levin, in Horowhenua, on 31 March 1991. His whakapapa is Ngati Raukawa, Muaupoko and Ngati Toa, and it carries two threads that have shaped his rugby life.

The first is old. His great-great-grandfather, Walter Pringle, was All Black number 30, a member of the 1893 team. The NZ Rugby Museum's profile on allblacks.com notes that this is probably the longest gap between two All Blacks in one family: 122 years separated Pringle's season and Taylor's debut.

The second he only learned as an adult. In 2015, according to his Wikipedia entry, Taylor discovered that he is a direct descendant of the people who created Ka Mate, the haka the All Blacks have performed for more than a century. Seven years later, on 13 November 2022 against Scotland, he led Ka Mate for the first time, and he was leading the haka again on the night of his 100th Test in 2025.

The family did not stay in Levin. The Museum's write-up records that Taylor grew up in Australia, where he played rugby league before switching to union, and the Ultimate Rugby profile adds that it was his father who steered him towards the 15-man game. Wikipedia has him back in the lower North Island, growing up in Feilding and Levin, before he moved south to Christchurch. He finished his schooling at Feilding High School.

RUGBE could not find a detailed published account of his junior club years in Australia or New Zealand, or of any New Zealand Schools honours. What is clear is that by the time he left school he was good enough for the national age-grade programme.

Age grade and the move south

In 2011 Taylor was part of the New Zealand Under 20 squad at the IRB Junior World Championship in Italy. New Zealand beat England 33-22 in the final in Padova on 26 June 2011, a fourth straight world title for the age group. The squad was full of future All Blacks, and the hooker from Feilding was one of them.

That year he was also on the fringe of the Crusaders. Christchurch's February 2011 earthquake forced the team to play every game of that season away from home, and Taylor, then in the wider squad, lived through it. "We travelled for every game that season," he told the Crusaders website in April 2026. He joined the Sydenham club in Christchurch, was in the Crusaders wider training squad in 2012, and made his provincial debut for Canterbury that same year.

Canterbury

Taylor arrived in a Canterbury side at the height of its powers. The red and blacks won the 2012 ITM Cup, beating Taranaki 51-27 in the semi-final and Auckland 31-18 in the final at Rugby League Park on 27 October 2012. The young hooker had to wait his turn behind established men, but by 2014 he was a regular contributor: three tries in the regular season, an 89 per cent tackle success rate, and the attention of the Maori All Blacks selectors. He toured Japan with the Maori side that November and scored a try in Tokyo.

Canterbury remains his province. When he re-signed with New Zealand Rugby in December 2021 the contract named Canterbury and the Crusaders alongside the All Blacks, and the All Blacks squad named last week still lists Canterbury as his province.

The Crusaders

Taylor made his Super Rugby debut for the Crusaders in 2013, but injuries limited his early opportunities. The breakthrough came in 2015. The Crusaders' own profile describes him going from "the least experienced hooker in the Crusaders squad" to All Blacks debutant in a single season, having overtaken Ben Funnell as first choice.

From there the titles piled up. In 2017 he played his 50th game for the club, started against the touring British and Irish Lions on 10 June (a 12-3 loss for the Crusaders), scored in the 17-0 quarter-final win over the Highlanders and started the final in Johannesburg, where the Crusaders beat the Lions 25-17 for their eighth title. They beat the same opponents in the 2018 final and won again in 2019.

In 2020 he was named vice-captain alongside David Havili. Then captain Scott Barrett hurt his foot in an internal game before Super Rugby Aotearoa began, and Taylor led the side for the first time against the Hurricanes in June. "It gives the likes of myself an opportunity to lead the team," he told 1News that week. Barrett needed surgery and missed the season; Taylor captained the Crusaders to the Aotearoa title, their fourth in a row, and the club won again in 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2025. Wikipedia lists him as a Super Rugby champion in six seasons; with the two Aotearoa titles, the count is eight.

The most emotional night came on Good Friday, 3 April 2026. The Crusaders' final match at Apollo Projects Stadium, the "temporary" Addington ground that had been home since the earthquakes, was also Taylor's 150th appearance for the club. His Sydenham clubmates performed a haka before kick-off. Taylor then scored twice from lineout drives inside the first quarter, completed a hat-trick straight after half-time and finished a right-edge move for a fourth try as the Crusaders beat the Fijian Drua 69-26, their 100th win at the ground. "To finish like that at this stadium with the boys was pretty cool," he said afterwards. Head coach Rob Penney called him "a guy who epitomises what it means to be a Crusader".

The Crusaders' 2026 season ended in the semi-finals, and the Hurricanes took the title. Taylor is in the 2027 squad.

The All Blacks: debut and a World Cup

Taylor's Test debut came at home, at AMI Stadium in Christchurch on 17 July 2015, against Argentina. He came off the bench in the 59th minute for Keven Mealamu, the man whose record as the only All Blacks hooker to 100 Tests he would one day share, and 12 minutes later scored from a scrum close to the Argentine line. The All Blacks won 39-18.

He went to the 2015 World Cup as the third hooker and played once, against Namibia in London. He lasted the full 80 minutes and scored in the 79th, with Beauden Barrett converting to make it 58-14. A month later he was a World Cup winner, waving to the crowds on Lambton Quay at the Wellington victory parade beside Julian Savea and TJ Perenara.

Becoming the first choice

Mealamu retired, and in 2016 Taylor became Dane Coles's deputy. A rare start, against Australia in Sydney in the opening Rugby Championship match, lasted three minutes before a head knock sent him off for assessment. He scored from a driving maul in the 57-15 win over South Africa in Durban that October, then collected a yellow card after the final whistle for a high tackle on Patrick Lambie.

2017 made him. Coles was sidelined for five months with concussion, and Taylor started all three Tests against the British and Irish Lions, scoring the first try of the series, set up by Israel Dagg, in the 30-15 first-Test win at Eden Park. He played in every one of the 14 Tests that year, seven as a starter and seven from the bench, and his four tries were the most by any All Blacks forward. In August 2017 he became the first All Black to sign a long-term contract with New Zealand Rugby running to 2021.

The following June, against France in Auckland, he produced what Wikipedia calls arguably the best individual performance of his career: a try and three try assists in a 52-11 win, and the man-of-the-match award. He started every Test in 2018 until he was rested against Japan, and at that year's New Zealand Rugby Awards he won the Tom French Cup as Maori player of the year and was a finalist for the Kelvin Tremain award, which went to Kendra Cocksedge.

At the 2019 World Cup in Japan he played five Tests, scored in the 46-14 quarter-final win over Ireland and reached 50 Tests in the semi-final. That night England won 19-7.

Centurion

The next phase brought durability rather than drama. Taylor played ten Tests in 2021, ten in 2022 (including two tries against Wales in Cardiff on 5 November and his first turn leading Ka Mate a week later), and nine in 2023, starting the World Cup final in Paris that the All Blacks lost 12-11 to South Africa. In December 2021 he had turned down the overseas money again and re-signed to the end of 2025, telling 1News that "putting my family first was a big part of my decision". Crusaders coach Scott Robertson said then: "Codie is a genuine leader in our group."

Robertson took over the All Blacks in 2024, and Taylor played 11 Tests that year. On 24 August 2025 (NZ time), against Argentina in Buenos Aires, he became the 14th All Black and only the second hooker to reach 100 Tests. He had by then scored 22 Test tries, one short of Dane Coles's record for an All Blacks hooker, which he has since passed, and he led the haka before kick-off. "He carries a huge amount of mana in our group," Robertson said in the team announcement. The All Blacks lost 29-23, Argentina's first win over them on Argentine soil.

Captain

Dave Rennie took charge of the All Blacks in 2026 and named Ardie Savea captain in June. Taylor started all three July Nations Championship wins over France, Italy and Ireland, then flew to South Africa for the four-Test "Greatest Rivalry" tour as acting tour captain while Savea rested.

A calf strain kept him out of the opening tour games, but on 15 August 2026 he captained the All Blacks for the first time, against the Bulls at Loftus Versfeld. Rennie said he "has done a great job leading this tour group". Taylor started the first two Tests, a 33-16 win in Johannesburg and a 33-26 loss in Cape Town, and was left out of the third. When Savea dislocated a shoulder in that match and stand-in captain Luke Jacobson was also ruled out, Rennie turned straight back to his hooker. Taylor captained the All Blacks in a Test for the first time in Baltimore on 12 September 2026 and scored, though South Africa won 43-28 to take the series 3-1. Rennie told reporters Taylor "gives us a lot of leadership and experience".

He kept the job for the Bledisloe Cup and led two wins, 50-19 at Eden Park (where he scored again) and 43-21 in Sydney. On 27 October he was named captain of the 36-man squad for the Nations Championship tour of Scotland, Wales and England. His record as a Test captain stands at two wins from three.

Style and standing

The Museum's profile calls him a hooker "known for his speed, physicality, and try-scoring ability", and the numbers back it. Hookers are not supposed to score 25 Test tries, or four in a Super Rugby game at 35. His win rate across 114 Tests is just under 75 per cent.

What coaches talk about more is character. New Zealand Rugby signed him long-term in 2017, on the strength of his Lions series. Robertson, in 2021, praised "the example he sets on and off the field". Rennie, who inherited him in 2026, made him tour captain within weeks. Penney's "epitomises what it means to be a Crusader" sums up the view in Christchurch.

Off the field

Taylor is married with a young family in Christchurch, which he has repeatedly cited as the reason for staying in New Zealand. In December 2020, stuck in managed isolation in Auckland after the Bledisloe series in Australia, he spent 12 hours on a stationary bike in his hotel room to raise money for the children's charity KidsCan, streaming the ride live.

Where he is now

Taylor leads the All Blacks against Scotland at Murrayfield on Sunday morning NZ time (Saturday 7 November in Edinburgh), with Wales and England to follow on consecutive weekends and a finals weekend in London at the end of the month. He is contracted to the Crusaders for 2027, the year of the next World Cup in Australia. He will be 36 by then.

Career at a glance

Test figures are from RUGBE's match-by-match All Blacks data to 17 October 2026.