Savea throws hat in Super basket
All that can be said for sure is that Ardie Savea won’t be playing sevens for New Zealand at the Olympic Games.
Why he’s now going to dedicate this year to 15-aside rugby remains open to interpretation. The 22-year-old has certainly been the subject of high-level discussions and would not look out of place in an All Blacks jersey, come June’s three-test series against Wales.
Savea, his Hurricanes coach Chris Boyd and New Zealand Rugby’s (NZR) general manager rugby, Neil Sorensen, all tried to provide clarity yesterday about why the openside flanker opted not to see his commitment to the Rio Olympics through.
But by the time Sorensen was finished, the reasons behind Savea’s change of heart were as unclear as they had been when NZR first sent its press release a few hours earlier.
Savea said it was a simple love of the Hurricanes environment and desire to win a Super Rugby title. Boyd concurred, but the waters are muddied by NZR not having clear guidelines in place.
This is sevens’ maiden Olympic appearance and Sorensen said there was a degree of trial and error about establishing where that sat in the pecking order.
‘‘We needed to ensure we didn’t decimate the playing stocks of the Super teams. That was really to us and important to Titch [New Zealand seven coach Gordon Tietjens] and everybody really,’’ Sorensen said.
‘‘The second thing was we had to make sure we didn’t take two halfbacks, two first five-eighths and three wingers from the All Blacks, especially with those guys losing some talent over the last few months. As well as giving ourselves a chance of putting out a team that was capable of winning in Rio.
‘‘Could we have maybe made more of a priority of sevens or said that sevens takes precedence over All Blacks in 2016? But even then it would still come down to player choice.
‘‘I can never imagine a time when we’ll say you can’t play for the All Blacks, you must play for the sevens or vice versa.’’
But there are bound to be more subtle ways of delivering messages, when required.
‘‘The coaches talk to players, not just All Black players, all the time. That’s the beauty of New Zealand,’’ Sorensen said.
‘‘You have Steve [Hansen], Fozzie [Ian Foster] and now Wayne Smith back in the fold, those guys are in and around the franchises all the time, talking to young men about their careers, their workons, what they think’s right for them. And we’ll never stop that, we’ll encourage that.’’
Sorensen added that ‘‘I have it on good authority that the All Blacks rate Ardie Savea incredibly highly.’’
For Savea’s part, he must be desperate to become an All Black, having toured with them as a nonplaying ‘‘apprentice’’ back in 2013.
‘‘My main focus was playing for the Hurricanes but whatever happens on top of that, if that’s the All Blacks or whatever, that’s just a bonus for me,’’ Savea said as the Hurricanes began their long journey Sunday.
He was flanked by Boyd, who said Savea’s decision to stick with fifteens was a very recent one and that no-one had talked him into it.
‘‘People can draw whatever link to Johannesburg on they like, but I can assure you, and anybody, that when Ardie spoke to me last week in the airport in Melbourne and said this was the way he was feeling, I was reasonably surprised about it,’’ Boyd said.
‘‘In fact I was very surprised about it.’’
Sorensen said NZR was, too, and he now hoped a player such as Rieko Ioane wasn’t the next to call and say he’d reconsidered his availability for sevens.
‘‘Even if a kid pulled out in July, for whatever reason, it would be incredibly disappointing. But we wouldn’t make a person go to Rio if they didn’t want to be there,’’ Sorensen said.
Which wasn’t to say NZR were particularly impressed in this instance.
‘‘Ardie Savea is a really good person, highly rated both on and off the field. But we are really disappointed that he’s pulled the pin so late. We respect that, but we’re not happy about it.’’