Friends and family
All Blacks No 8 Ardie Savea opens up on rivalries, his upbringing and challenging the system. Alex Lowe of The Times reports.
Ardie Savea is on the phone to Siya Kolisi. The South Africa captain is in his hotel room in Genoa before the Springboks’ test against Italy tomorrow, missing his family and feeling emotional. Down the line, Kolisi offers some words of advice to Savea, the All Blacks No 8.
‘‘Rugby is not like it used to be, brother,’’ he says. ‘‘We are here to help each other.’’ They sign off the conversation with a plan to meet for dinner in London on Sunday night.
‘‘People have this mentality that we are supposed to hate each other, which is old school,’’ Savea says.
‘‘We are best friends. We will go out for dinner three days before we play each other in a game – but the one guy I want to smash on the field is Siya,’’ he adds, rolling forwards in his chair as he laughs.
Theirs is a friendship forged through rugby. Last year, Savea, 29, and Kolisi, 31, captained against each other when New Zealand and South Africa marked a century of intense and sometimes politically charged rivalry by playing their 100th test.
On three occasions, New Zealand ceded to a demand from South Africa’s apartheid regime that no black players should tour their country. ‘‘How crazy is this? One hundred games and two people of colour captaining,’’ Kolisi said, after giving Savea a warm embrace.
They are two leaders who not only represent change within rugby but are driving it. Savea is not sure where it comes from, given he was raised by Samoan parents in Wellington to be respectful and deferential, but he is an agitator; he wants to ‘‘challenge the system’’.
That anti-establishment notion was reinforced on Tuesday when World Rugby announced its shortlist for men’s player of the year and Savea’s name was absent. It is a staggering omission. In a year of struggle for New Zealand, he has been a shining light.
At first it bothered him. ‘‘Again?’’ he says, having also been overlooked last year. ‘‘But I spoke to my wife. I play to put smiles on people’s faces. If people are coming to watch me and enjoy it, then that is what I do it for.’’
Savea has always been a showman. Aged 11, he acted in a school performance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. ‘‘I played the black guy,’’ he says, referring to the character of Judah, one of Joseph’s brothers, who sings a calypso song after Benjamin, the youngest sibling, is falsely accused of theft. Savea snaps his fingers and breaks into song: ‘‘Oh no, not he; how can you accuse him is a mystery; save him, take me; Benjamin is straighter than a tall palm tree’’. More laughter.
Savea grew up with his older brother, Julian – who scored 46 tries in 54 tests for the All Blacks – in a humble Samoan household. Their father, who moved to New Zealand aged 19 and still barely speaks English, worked overnight making pies in a bakery. They had very little – but they had music and rugby.
‘‘During the school holidays, when Mum and Dad were at work, Jules and I would be at home by ourselves. We had no Sky TV or anything. We had a tape recorder and would listen to the band Blue or play Ricky Martin and choreograph dance routines together,’’ Savea says, cueing up another outburst of song.
‘‘I was five, he was eight. Then the film You Got Served came out and we learnt all the dances in that and became breakdancers. That was all from boredom at home.
‘‘Looking back now, we didn’t have much but it felt at the time like we had everything because of our parents’ love for us. They were working long hours.
‘‘Dad would bring pies home because all we had at home was a loaf of bread and tomato sauce, so me and Jules would make tomato sauce sandwiches. A lot of what Mum and Dad did instilled the values we have now. We operate with respect, we love family.
‘‘I am so grateful because it has allowed me to be where I am but also reflect on where I come from. I was somehow gifted by the man above to be good at rugby. I feel I have been put on this earth to be more than just a footy player.’’
I n New Zealand, international players tend to be subservient to the brand of the All Blacks. Savea, who has won 69 caps since his debut in 2016, says he is respectful of that but it frustrates him at times. He is striving to do his own thing, determined to build player power and connect more effectively with the public.
In 2019, he launched a podcast series so that his team-mates had a platform to tell their stories. It was a reaction to his brother’s unhappy spell with Toulon, where his reputation was tarnished by the club’s owner at that time, Mourad Boudjellal.
‘‘It came from a place of hurt, seeing what my older brother went through and the image of him that was being painted in the media,’’ Savea says. ‘‘I knew it wasn’t him and I just thought, ‘If people could get to know the athletes for real then it might bridge that gap and build some empathy.’ I just love connecting and talking with the brothers.’’
Last year, Savea negotiated his own contract with New Zealand Rugby (NZR) and he secured a four-year deal, including a sabbatical abroad after the World Cup. Savea had previously spoken with TJ Perenara, the halfback, about contracts and pay levels. He was interested in how NZR defined a player’s worth, so he decided to do it himself.
‘‘I wanted to sit at the table and fight for myself,’’ he says. ‘‘What I found challenging was talking about myself, having to say, ‘I am the best player.’ That was hard for me. The way I was born, [in Samoan culture] we just bring ourselves down. People who are [a] higher authority than us, we show the utmost respect [to].
‘‘So when I was sitting with the guys at the top of New Zealand rugby, I was brought up to just bow down. But I was in contract negotiations. I have a family. I have to maximise my time in the game.’’
Savea has had designs on starting his own players’ union, and he used his platform as an All Black to press for changes to World Rugby’s eligibility laws, so that players with a handful of test caps in New Zealand or Australia could represent their Pacific Island nation.
Where does this desire to challenge the system come from? ‘‘I don’t know. My mum and dad are humble people,’’ he says. ‘‘I have just got this whole thing about proving to myself I can do things.’’ Savea holds up LeBron James, the NBA star, as an inspiration, and again he references Kolisi.
‘‘I just love what he represents, his values,’’ Savea says of South Africa’s World Cup-winning captain. ‘‘That is why we are like family. There is something powerful there, two leaders in different
countries that are so close. There is something there to make real shifts in the rugby community.’’
We joke that if Savea played in the NFL he would put his dance skills to good use by choreographing touchdown celebrations. He would enjoy doing the same in rugby but fears the culture is not ready for it, although the impact of the Black Ferns could change the dial.
Ruby Tui took the microphone after their World Cup final victory and had 40,000 fans at Eden Park singing along with her. ‘‘That was crazy,’’ Savea says. ‘‘I know there are so many guys with personalities like that in the men’s game. But if you have a male version of Ruby Tui, you would have to fall into place.
‘‘You can’t be too much out there. It’s guys putting their own insecurities on others to just fit in a box. How you break that is the challenge. That is why I think the women’s game is ready to go boom. It is such an awesome product.’’
By the time Savea links up with Kolisi tomorrow, the All Blacks’ season will be over. If they lose to England at Twickenham it will equal their worst year since 1998, despite winning the Rugby Championship.
A victory at Twickenham, however, would change the complexion of the campaign and ensure they sign off with seven straight wins. But England are also hungry, having managed only five victories in 10 tests in 2022.
‘‘This is the one everyone’s been waiting for,’’ Savea says. ‘‘A dub [W, win] would mean so much to the group, especially what the All Blacks have been through this year – the scrutiny and the losses we had. People weren’t used to that, which is fair. Those aren’t the standards we hold ourselves to.’’
What did Savea learn about himself during that period? ‘‘Sometimes there is beauty in going through the trenches together and coming out the other end. In those moments, when it was the world against us, we dug deep in ourselves as a team. I am a big people person, so when my brother feels pain I feel pain too.’’
‘‘I feel I have been put on this earth to be more than just a footy player.’’ Ardie Savea