Ardie Savea’s move to Moana Pasifika was initially criticised for risking his career development.
Savea’s exceptional performance has proven doubters wrong, elevating Moana to a top-six position.
His leadership and skills have drawn comparisons to Richie McCaw, enhancing his legacy.
When Ardie Savea first signalled his desire to join Moana Pasifika, there were harbingers of doom suddenly popping up across the rugby landscape to tell him what a dreadful mistake he would be making.
The big fear within the higher echelons of the national game was thatSavea, World Rugby Player of the Year in 2023, would be shifting to an environment that did not have the high-performance structures to support or nurture his talent.
Launched in 2022, Moana had struggled to attract the highest-quality players, they had struggled to win games, they had struggled to forge an identity and build a fan base, and as a result, they had struggled to stay afloat financially.
When Savea decided he wanted to join Moana, he encountered a level of resistance which suggested that despite the club being set up with a provision that it could carry three All Blacks in its squad, no one expected a premium talent would ever want to play there.
This was a once-in-a-generation player opting to walk away from the top-of-the-table Hurricanes and all the high-performance securities it offered to play for a club that was effectively nomadic in 2024 and dwelling once again in the Super Rugby Pacific basement.
Savea was told he was taking an almost unjustifiable risk with his career that would derail his development and endanger his ability to play at the highest level and possibly even put his All Blacks selection at risk.
He doesn’t seem the petty or vengeful type but having produced one of the greatest individual performances in Super Rugby history on Saturday night to inspire his team to a deserved victory over the Blues, Savea would be entirely vindicated in hunting down all those who told him he was mad to join Moana and asking for an apology.
His performance at North Harbour bordered on the ridiculous, such was the range of skills on show.
Moana Pasifika's Ardie Savea carries the ball against the Blues. Photo / Photosport
He did everything a classic No 7 should, but then in a five-minute passage, he took a defensive high ball on the wing and beat three defenders to launch a counter-attack and then pulled off a scarcely believable left-foot chip-and-regather to show that he is much more than a classic No 7.
It was a freakish display in one sense, but entirely in line with the body of work Savea has produced with Moana.
Maybe there is an element of him playing to prove the doubters wrong, but maybe, too, there is something within the Moana environment that has amplified Savea’s best qualities. Perhaps he is playing as well as he is not in spite of the club’s set-up and culture, but because of it.
The responsibility of leading a talented but inexperienced squad has sat so easily on his shoulders and he’s grown immeasurably by acting as the club’s North Star.
He’s seen that there is a hunger to succeed, felt the connection within the team to the wider Pasifika community and realised that all this energy, emotion and pride needs a talismanic leader to channel it in the right direction.
And like all the game’s best captains, he’s built his leadership around his form. Making comparisons isn’t always fair or helpful, but there have been so many echoes of Richie McCaw in Savea this year – from the way he’s been genuinely inspirational on the field, to his calm, controlled and respectful interactions with referees, to the way he’s been easygoing and understated with the media.
It’s rare to find players who can not only cope with all the various demands of captaincy, but use it as their motivational driver to continually set the highest standards.
There were some in the rugby C-suite worried that Savea would come out of Super Rugby a shadow of his former self, broken and dispirited by the drudgery of being consistently involved in heavy defeats and misshapen performances. But what the All Blacks will instead welcome in July is the world’s most impactful loose forward and the country’s most effective and inspirational captain.
Moana don’t owe their residency in the top six entirely to Savea, but it’s difficult to believe they would have been the force they are this season – on the verge of a home Grand Slam, having beaten the Highlanders, Hurricanes and Blues (with the Chiefs to come this week) – without him.
It’s apparent already that once his boots are hung up, his name will sit comfortably and justifiably alongside McCaw and Sir Michael Jones. Moana haven’t ended anything for him but instead have been the catalyst for Savea to elevate himself to the pantheon of the truly best players New Zealand has seen.
