Dane Coles

In 2012, Coles made his All Blacks debut against Scotland. He came on in the 62nd minute: New Zealand 51, Scotland 22. Coles made three more appearances off the bench in 2012, earning his first start for New Zealand in 2013 against France.

Coles scored his first try against South Africa in 2014 in a 25-27 loss and had also become a regular starter for New Zealand by 2014, supplanting long-serving All Black great Keven Mealamu from the starting XV.

Of Ngāti Porou descent, Coles was awarded the Tom French Memorial Cup in 2016 as the Māori rugby player of the year. After scoring four tries that year, which made him the highest-scoring forward in the squad for 2016, Coles was also nominated for New Zealand Rugby Player of the Year and World Rugby Player of the Year earlier in 2016, losing both awards to Hurricanes teammate Beauden Barrett.

Coles missed all of Super Rugby in 2018 due to his ACL injury. Coles was expected to be back in time for the playoffs but was physically unable to run until June. England international, Brad Shields, captained the Hurricanes in 2018, in Coles' absence. After finally recovering from injury at the back-end of the 2018 Mitre 10 Cup, Coles, as well as his teammate Nepo Laulala were both re-called for New Zealand after a long injury-enforced absence. Coles played four tests for New Zealand on the end-of-year tour, but having been surpassed as the first-choice hooker by Codie Taylor, was benched for the All Blacks against England and Ireland.