If you’re still wondering who the best rugby player on the planet is right now, you’re either not watching Super Rugby Pacific, or deliberately ignoring the phenomenon that is Moana Pasifika captain and All Blacks loose forward Ardie Savea. The man has transcended his role, his jersey, and - if we’re honest - the entire idea of rugby as a team sport.
Rugby isn’t normally a sport where one player can drag a team across the line. Too many moving parts. Too much structure. Too many guys in the trench beside you. You can get away with that in football or basketball - hell, Latrell Mitchell can go beast mode in league and win it off his own back for the Rabbitohs against the Broncos. But union? Nah. That’s supposed to be a team game.
Except no one told Ardie Savea.
Take his outing last weekend for Moana Pasifika against the Blues. A lesser side playing a franchise with far more history, depth, and expectations. The Blues were favourites for good reasons, but they didn't get the chocolates. Why? Ardie Savea. The man was wearing a Superman cape disguised as a Moana jersey. Every carry, every tackle, every turnover had his fingerprints all over it.
You could feel the momentum tilt every time Savea got near the ball. It wasn’t just dominance, it was ownership of the game, of the pitch, of the opposition’s respect.
That kind of leadership - intangible, unteachable, immeasurable - is what separates great players from generational ones.
If you’re not calling him the best player in the world right now, then who are you watching instead? Antoine Dupont? Sure, the French halfback is magical. Pieter Steph du Toit? He's imposing. But neither of them are doing what Savea is doing - single-handedly changing games every single week. Not moments, but entire matches.
You don’t get players like this often. In fact, we’ve probably never seen one quite like him in New Zealand rugby, at least not in this era. He’s got Richie McCaw’s motor, Kieran Read’s range, and the ball-in-hand menace of Jerome Kaino. That’s not hyperbole, that’s Ardie.
Now here comes a slightly trickier part - is this all enough for All Blacks coach Scott Robertson to think twice about who his captain is for 2025? The debate around whether Savea should be handed the role, and incumbent Scott Barrett relieved of his duties, has ignited a couple of times this year. I firmly believe there's no reason why Barrett should lose the captaincy, and like Savea, he is a world class player with plenty to offer from a leadership perspective.
But Savea's impact on Moana Pasifika - how they've now become not only a competitive side in Super Rugby, but one pushing for a finals place - cannot go unnoticed. What he is doing right now is good for the soul of the sport. It’s a reminder that sometimes, in a code that prizes combinations and cohesion, an individual can still rise above the collective and carry the whole ship.
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