Former All Black scrum-half Justin Marshall has delivered one of the more blunt selection verdicts of the 2026 international build-up — and at the centre of it sits Will Jordan, the player many pundits have been trying to move out of his best position.
Speaking on a televised selection panel, the 81-Test Marshall picked a New Zealand starting fifteen to face France and used the exercise to reject what he sees as rugby's laziest compromise: shoving your best fullback onto the wing because you cannot find a better winger.
"I don't buy into putting the world's best full-back on the wing because we can't find a winger," Marshall said. "That's a load of b*llocks to me."
His alternative was blunt. "The world's best full-back plays full-back, and we find that winger."
It is not a new debate in New Zealand rugby — Jordan has periodically been shifted to the wing at World Cup level as a way of squeezing another playmaker into the back three — but Marshall's framing puts it differently. His argument is not that Jordan is a bad winger. It is that the instinct to move him there is a symptom of a selection panel refusing to back younger players in their best positions.
Marshall also used the selection to signal where he thinks New Zealand should head tactically and culturally in 2026, even as the side rebuilds after a turbulent run. "If the French were here next week and we didn't have the Ardie Saveas, the Richie Mo'ungas and the Scott Barretts at our disposal..." he began — before pivoting to the larger question he wanted on the table. "Are we going to be prepared to evolve? Are we going to be able to take that giant step forward?"
That evolution, in Marshall's telling, is partly about ruthlessness. "It's also sweeping the shed a little bit," he said, borrowing the All Blacks' own cultural shorthand for leaving the dressing room cleaner than you found it. "And that's why I've concluded that if you put this side out, is it a side that we can trust."
It is a nuanced position. Marshall's selected side, while not published in full, is explicitly built to balance senior experience against genuine next-generation ambition. "There are some players there that you'll see who are part of the institution of the All Blacks in recent times," he said. "But there is also a real good, big step in basically going towards the future."
The subtext is obvious to anyone tracking New Zealand rugby in 2026. Scott Robertson's sudden January departure left the All Blacks looking for a new head coach mid-cycle, with Victor Matfield among those now publicly predicting a recovery back to world No. 1 status. Marshall's selection exercise is part of a broader conversation about what the "post-Robertson All Blacks" should actually look like — and how much senior-player equity should carry into the new regime.
Moving Will Jordan around to accommodate other fullbacks is, in that context, exactly the kind of safe-and-familiar choice Marshall is arguing against. If New Zealand want to take a genuine step forward — to use his word, to evolve — then, in his view, the first rule is easy: the world's best No. 15 plays 15. You find the winger.
With Test rugby looming over the winter and the All Blacks' 2026 form still an open question, it is the kind of no-compromise take that will likely echo into the actual selection room. Whether New Zealand's coaches agree, of course, is the part that actually matters. Marshall's message to them is clear: stop compromising Will Jordan.
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*Originally published on [Rugby News](https://rugbynews.online/article/a-load-of-bllocks-justin-marshall-tears-up-the-all-blacks-wing-debate-over-will-a18700). Visit for full coverage.*
