Ardie Savea

Ardie Savea is the captain of Dave Rennie’s new-era All Blacks and, for most neutral watchers, the best pound-for-pound forward of his generation — a World Rugby player of the year whose game has no comfortable historical comparison. He carries like an eight, jackals like a specialist openside, offloads like an islander backline legend, and now leads a national side rebuilding its aura, unbeaten in the six matches our database records for 2026.

The signature is chaos tolerance. Savea is at his best when structure dissolves — tackle bust, offload, support line, turnover, all inside the same passage — and New Zealand’s attack has increasingly been designed to create exactly those broken moments for him. His leadership style matches: emotional, visible, personal in a way the All Blacks captaincy has not always permitted. Handing him the armband was Rennie’s clearest statement about what this team intends to feel like.

He is Wellington to the core and made headlines committing his club career to Moana Pasifika, carrying the franchise on his back in its final Super Rugby seasons — a decision about heritage and service that endeared him even to opposition fans. The Savea family story, alongside brother Julian’s, is one of the great modern All Black lineages.

The four-Test Greatest Rivalry series in South Africa is the sternest examination a New Zealand captain can face — no fixture in rugby asks harder questions of a back row than the Springboks’ kick-pressure game. How Savea’s tourists answer, starting at Ellis Park, will define the first chapter of the Rennie era.