Gregor Paul is one of New Zealand’s most respected rugby writers and columnists. He has won multiple awards for journalism and has written several books about sport.
One test, however brilliant, doesn’t necessarily constitute a body of evidence, but Ardie Savea’s all-action,high-impact performance against England in Dunedin went some way towards debunking the myth that it takes months for players to readjust after spending a season in Japan.
The world’s best player in 2023 provided a reminder that he’s capable, regardless of how little rugby he may have played or where he has played it, of slipping into an All Blacks jersey and producing extraordinary feats.
Savea is rugby’s veritable super hero – a stiff and awkward-looking athlete during the week, whose hunched demeanour and shuffling gait hides all evidence of his capabilities and then, come Saturday, he pops into the phone booth, dons his outfit and the transition is complete.
The bloke who looked like he could barely make it to the mailbox to retrieve the mail was suddenly hammering into bigger, more powerful Englishmen but shifting them backwards in a way physics, and its formulas around acceleration and mass, says is impossible.
There was solidity in his tackling, too, and of course, in scoring New Zealand’s second try, Savea showed one of his superpowers – that uncanny ability to play in the backline as if he should be playing in the backline.
But for all his powerful ball carrying, astute positioning at the right times, and his head-on defence, the key contribution Savea made was his ability to break English hearts with his breakdown snaffling.
It’s pushing the narrative a touch to suggest the All Blacks wouldn’t have won without him, but when the game was slipping away midway through the second half, the home side needed something beyond the normal to resist England’s momentum.
They needed their big players to come up with big moments and Savea, as he’s done so many times before, was twice able to get himself in the perfect position to win critical turnovers just as England were maybe one phase away from having the defence at breaking point.
His timing, his instincts, his strength and his innate reading of the breakdown are at a level not seen since Richie McCaw was in his pomp.
Savea, albeit wearing No 8, plays with the same hunter-gatherer instincts as McCaw and the same predatory desire to steal what’s not his.
And because of that, he has that same ability to frustrate opponents and inspire his teammates in equal measure, and the sense of rage and disappointment that fed through the English ranks was palpable both times they heard the shrill blast of referee Nika Amashukeli’s whistle and saw his arm shoot up to award the All Blacks penalties just as they were about to pull the trigger.
These were huge moments in the context of the game and England knew the importance of what Savea had done to them, which is why, without doubt, they will be heading to Auckland this week with a revised and beefed-up plan to nullify the All Blacks No 8.
Again, this is how things used to be in the age of McCaw – he’d cause so much damage and frustration that teams would over-focus on trying to keep him out of the game, but it would never work and in the end, mostly opponents reverted to belting him off the ball, a thought which will inevitable cross a few English minds at Eden Park.
“He was straight back on. His professionalism has been incredible – around the vice-captaincy too,” said All Blacks coach Scott Robertson about Savea.
“He stood up and got a couple of great turnovers and did a couple of tough carries off slow ball. He stood up.”
Whether Savea can be used as the case study to debunk the myth about how out-of-sync players return from Japan depends on whether he can be considered a true representation of the senior cohort who are granted the right to play sabbatical seasons over there.
Beauden Barrett (centre) has returned from Japan to rejoin the All Blacks. Photo / Photosport
Maybe the rules can’t be applied to him, but it wasn’t missed either that Beauden Barrett looked immediately comfortable with the pace, intensity and physicality of the game when he came on early in the second half.
He, like Savea, also skipped Super Rugby Pacific to play in Japan, and while he took a bit of time to adjust the last time he did that in 2021, there was no similar sense of him being off the pace.
While Stephen Perofeta was in the midst of an impressive outing at fullback, Robertson obviously felt he wanted the greater experience, calm and vision of the veteran Barrett to see out what he could see was going to be a tense and tight final 30 minutes.
“It was a great cameo,” said Robertson of Barrett’s effort. “A couple of nice touches off his foot and some good guidance from him on the leadership side, just what we needed from him a the right time.”
