Liam Barry
Liam John Barry (born 15 March 1971) is a New Zealand rugby union coach and former rugby union player. He is the head coach of North Harbour's provincial rugby union side in New Zealand. He has previously been the assistant coach of rugby union Super Rugby side, the Blues. He debuted for North Harbour in 1991 at the age of 20, and racked up 83 games over a decade-long provincial career. He had two spells in Japan, playing for NEC from 1997 to 2001 and Kubota from 2002 to 2004.
| Birth name | Liam John Barry | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Date of birth | 15 March 1971 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Place of birth | Takapuna, New Zealand | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 1.94 m (6 ft 4 1⁄2 in) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weight | 95 kg (209 lb) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| School | Rosmini College | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Notable relative(s) | Kevin Barry (father) Edward Barry (grandfather) Hilary Barry (sister-in-law)[1] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Barry holds a special place among the long parade of All Blacks for when he was chosen as a 22-year-old for the tour of Scotland and England in 1993 he followed his father Kevin and his grandfather Ned in wearing the silver fern. That became the first instance of a family providing three generations of All Blacks. Liam Barry was an English teacher also. During his time teaching, he coached the TBC U14A team to win the Bay Of Plenty Championship and 6th Place in Super 8. He has four children and is married to wife Sarah.
International career
On his first tour with the All Blacks Liam Barry became the innocent participant in a major controversy. Coach Laurie Mains brought Mike Brewer into his squad for the latter part of the tour although he had been originally unavailable for business reasons and was in Britain at the time for that purpose. When Brewer was brought in as a reserve for the international against England and especially when he took the field as a replacement against the Barbarians in the tour finale it caused a storm of protest, especially in New Zealand. This was because he had been preferred to official selections in the team in Barry and also John Mitchell. he aftermath came close to Mains being replaced as All Black coach and, in fact, one of his selection colleagues, Peter Thorburn, was dropped for the 1994 season. Mains, apparently, believed Barry in 1993 had shown a lack of readiness for top international rugby and while he went on the development tour of Argentina in 1994 he was overlooked for the All Blacks for the next two seasons. But at the end of the 1995 season he toured France and Italy and gained a test cap in the second international against France.
That was the end of his All Black career, though. He was affected by injury for much of the 1996 season and was ruled out of the tour of South Africa. At the end of that year he took up a contract in Japan, returning to New Zealand for another NPC season with North Harbour in 2001. But after failing to win a Super 12 contract for 2002 Barry at 31 returned for another stint in Japan.[2]
Coaching career
Barry had spent the six years with the Blues franchise, as s skills coach from 2006-2009 and assistant coach in 2009-10. In 2010 Barry had been named as the North Harbour rugby head coach for 2011 after former All Blacks Craig Dowd and Jeff Wilson who were sacked after two under-achieving seasons in the job.[3]
References
- "Hilary Barry's game of love". New Zealand Woman's Weekley. 16 September 2011. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
- "Liam Barry All Blacks Profile". Retrieved 11 March 2013.
- "Liam Barry new North Harbour coach". 6 December 2010. Retrieved 11 March 2013.