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: in wearing the silver fern.
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.
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.
In 2010 Barry had been named as the North Harbour rugby head coach for 2011 taking over from former All Blacks Craig Dowd and Jeff Wilson who were sacked after two under-achieving seasons in the job.
Nathaniel, his 20-year-old son, has recently competed at a representative level in rugby, playing for Wellington U20, Hurricanes U20, and the New Zealand Barbarians U21 teams.