in wearing the silver fern. That became the first instance of a family providing three generations of All Blacks. In July 2020 the family provided All Black jerseys worn by the three for display at the New Zealand Rugby Museum in Palmerston North. Other relatives of note in rugby include:
Patrick Barry, son of Edward who played for Counties, and
Liam Barry is also a qualified teacher. He has four children Esther, Nat, Isaiah and Nieve and is married to spouse 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. The 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.
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.
