Asked who needed to stand up in Baltimore, John Afoa went through the All Blacks pack one by one and named the two men who were not there.
“No Ardie. We don’t have that sort of captain. We had the great one, Richie [McCaw]: get on my back, lads, follow me, and everyone just does their job.”
John Afoa said it on Sunday 13 September on Sky Sport’s The Breakdown, the evening after South Africa closed out Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry 3-1 in Baltimore. He had been asked why New Zealand kept getting close and kept losing. His answer was a man who had flown home a week earlier and a captain who retired in 2015.
John Afoa played in the same pack as McCaw from 2005 to 2011 and won a World Cup beside him in the last of those years. He is on the Counties Manukau coaching staff now, and he was not being nostalgic. Who leads this pack when Ardie Savea is not on the field? Put a name in the comments before reading his.
John Afoa went through the pack: “no one in there that’s like the real leader leader”
The host, Taylor Curtis, asked John Afoa who needed to stand up. He went through the forwards one at a time: the young front-row replacements, Josh Lord back in the side, Tupou Vaa’i, Ethan Blackadder, Peter Lakai.
“You know what, I think there’s no one in there that’s like the real leader leader, and they’re all bringing a little bit. But… I think we lack a guy like Sam Cane, and we lack Ardie, who sort of, when it’s getting tough and it’s right in that moment… And you think about the Springboks: they got maybe five of them, with the Marx and the [Etzebeth] and the 100-Test caps in the backline. Just, they follow them.”
The two names he wants are gone. Cane retired from Tests at the end of 2024 after 95 of them, 27 as captain, and plays for Suntory in Tokyo. Savea dislocated a shoulder in Soweto and flew home with Luke Jacobson, who had taken the captaincy on 31 minutes that night and was then ruled out with an elbow injury.
What was left was young. Lakai and Sam Darry went into Soweto with 12 and 10 caps. Blackadder made his first start of the series in Baltimore.
The experience gap in Soweto was 958 caps to 606, and Afoa’s five Springboks with the 100-Test caps include the site’s own player of the series.
“It’s a rock, and the rock doesn’t move”
John Afoa’s point was never about talent. It was about what happens to a young forward in the ten seconds before a soft try.
“The pick and go, you know, maybe that was a defensive error, like one player’s thinking of something else, and then [du Toit]’s nice and tight. And then the maul try, where [Darry]’s, you know, maybe he’s under a bit of pressure. He’s stressed and he’s thinking about something else. And that’s where we talk about having that calmness: oh, my first job’s here. He makes that tackle. They don’t score. It’s a rock, and the rock doesn’t move.”
The two tries he means came on 49 and 53 in Baltimore, Malcolm Marx from a maul and Pieter-Steph du Toit from close range, and they turned 17-14 into 29-14 in four minutes. New Zealand got back to 29-21 on 64 and lost 43-28.
John Afoa’s explanation for the gap between those numbers was the McCaw line. “When he’s there, he brings the calmness, and when you’re calm, you make good decisions.”
Codie Taylor started because he was the captain
The selection that follows from all of this was Codie Taylor at hooker, and Aaron Cruden, 50 Tests at fly-half, was honest about it.
“I think Asafo Aumua has been one of our best all series, and possibly deserved the start. But I think once Ardie went down, possibly Luke Jacobson went down, just bringing back Codie, that experienced head. And I tell you what, he really stood up for me this morning. He was outstanding: battered, bloody, but he was leading from the front.”
Then the sentence that matters. “I just think that was probably more a decision from the coaches of, okay, we need Codie Taylor as a captain and an experienced member in this game in particular.”
The record backs him. Taylor was left out of the 23 for Soweto, where Aumua started and hit seven of eight lineouts in the first half. Aumua was also the 54th-minute change that won Ellis Park.
In Baltimore the Baltimore ratings gave Taylor a 6.5: bleeding from the head after Damian de Allende’s knee on 25, playing on, off on 48. Aumua came on and his throw on 62 went short and round the back for Blackadder’s try.
Dave Rennie said at the team naming that Taylor captained because he had been the tour captain before Savea and Jacobson went home. A 111-cap hooker was picked to lead, and the hooker Cruden rated the better of the two this series sat on the bench for 48 minutes. Both things are true.
Read also: Kirwan wants Blackadder at seven, and Vaa’i is the reason, which is the other half of the same back-row argument.
Mils Muliaina has sat in the meetings that come next
Muliaina, 100 Tests at fullback between 2003 and 2011, was in the side through 2009, when South Africa beat New Zealand three times in a season. He did not argue with Afoa. He described what happens after.
“Yes, Ardie is the captain, but they should be so aligned that no matter who puts that on… Jacobson went into that after [Ardie] went off, but you got plenty of experience there. The key for me is that leadership group and being all on the same page again. And part of being on the same page is having to go through, unfortunately, this hurt, because it sucks.”
Then this. “I’ve been in those leadership group meetings where you don’t even think you want to damn be there, because you’ve lost so much to these guys. But you learn so much, and it’s hard to see from the outside, but a lot of it will come down to those guys.”
Asked who the captain should be, he did not hesitate. “Codie Taylor is probably your first pick right now, given that he’s kept in over the weekend.”
Where this lands
John Afoa is right about the absence and wrong to expect a replacement by October. Nobody found McCaw. He was made, across the years of losing to South Africa that Muliaina describes, and the one regret McCaw admits to from his own career involves South Africa too.
The site’s position is Muliaina’s. Taylor captains the Bledisloe if Savea is not back, and the leader Afoa could not find is one of the forwards he named. Vaa’i, past 50 caps and now at six, is the one who has to become the rock.
Read next: Kirwan calls three defeats in a row learnings, and names the two locks he would build the next year on.
Your turn: is there a leader in that pack?
Two readings of John Afoa’s list. Either he is right and nobody in that pack can say “get on my back” until Savea’s shoulder heals. Or the leaders are in there and eight weeks of losing to the best team in the world is exactly how they get made, which is what Muliaina says. Name one forward. Settle it below.
Frequently asked
Who is the All Blacks captain when Ardie Savea is injured? Codie Taylor captained the Baltimore Test. Dave Rennie said he had been the tour captain before Savea and Luke Jacobson went home injured after Soweto, where Jacobson took over on 31 minutes when Savea left the field.
What did John Afoa say about the All Blacks pack? On Sky Sport’s The Breakdown on Sunday 13 September he said “there’s no one in there that’s like the real leader leader”, that New Zealand lack a Sam Cane or an Ardie Savea for the hard moments, and that the Springboks have five centurions the rest follow.
Has Sam Cane retired from the All Blacks? Yes. He retired from Test rugby at the end of 2024 after 95 Tests, 27 of them as captain, and plays for Suntory in Tokyo.
