Ruben Love is expected to keep the All Blacks No 10 jersey for the second Test against South Africa at DHL Stadium in Cape Town on Saturday 29 August, four days after Richie Mo’unga’s first appearance in a New Zealand shirt since the 2023 World Cup final. Love has started all four Tests of Dave Rennie’s reign, including Saturday’s 33-16 win at Ellis Park that ended the Springboks’ 12-Test unbeaten run.
Rennie has not moved off his position once. “At the moment it’s been Ruben’s jersey, and he’s going well,” the head coach told reporters before the series opener, adding of Mo’unga: “He’s going to have to earn the right.”
That process starts at Ellis Park tonight, where the 32-year-old is in the 23 to face the Lions (kick-off 7pm local) in the midweek tour fixture, with lock Patrick Tuipulotu captaining a heavily rotated side.
What Love actually did at Ellis Park
The scoreline flatters the first half. New Zealand’s scrum went backwards for 45 minutes, Ethan de Groot was pinged for collapsing in the 26th minute, and South Africa spent most of the opening period inside All Blacks territory without turning it into points.
The job of a first five in that half is narrow and thankless: get the ball off the deck, get it long, get it out of the 22, and do not be the man who forces it. Love did that, then landed a sideline conversion of wing Josh Moorby’s 22nd-minute try that put New Zealand in front for the first time. Four from four off the tee in that wind, on that surface, with the scrum under that much pressure, is the whole contribution — and it is the part that never makes a highlights package.
RugbyPass rated him 6.5, which sounds like faint praise until you look at what happened around him. The match turned on lock Fabian Holland charging down scrum-half Grant Williams from a restart just before the hour, and on a bench that fixed a scrum nobody expected to be fixable. Love did not win that Test. He also did not lose it, which is more than the previous three New Zealand 10s managed against this Springboks side.
Two years at full-back he never wanted
Ruben Tamati Love, 25, is the son of former Māori All Black Matene Love and came out of Palmerston North Boys’ High School as the first player selected for both the New Zealand Under-18 Māori rugby and cricket teams. He picked rugby, debuted for Wellington against Bay of Plenty in September 2020, and joined the Hurricanes at 19.
Then it stopped. Successive groin injuries cost him the better part of two seasons. The club needed him on the field, so it put him at 15 — and the longer that went on, the more the label stuck.
He told the NZ Herald the thing that kept him going was a coach who saw it differently before he did. “For Jase to see me as a 10 in 2021 when I didn’t even believe in myself meant so much to me then,” Love said, referring to Jason Holland, then the Hurricanes head coach and now back at the club as an assistant.
His All Blacks debut came off the bench against Japan in Yokohama in October 2024, two tries in the last 10 minutes of a 64-19 win. It was his only Test that year. Last season he made four appearances, two of them starts at full-back in second-string sides five months apart. He had five caps and no settled position when Rennie took the job.
The decision to commit to 10 was made in a conversation with Hurricanes head coach Clark Laidlaw midway through last year. Nine months later Love had led the Hurricanes to their first Super Rugby title since 2016 and scored 25 points in the final against the Chiefs — reported by the Herald as the largest individual haul in a Super Rugby final. An ankle injury picked up in a pre-season session had already cost him the first month of that campaign.
Rennie’s first act as head coach was to name him at 10 for the France Test in Christchurch on 4 July, over Beauden Barrett and Damian McKenzie. “He was outstanding, so I’m sure there won’t be too many arguments,” Rennie said at the time. Love was yellow-carded in the second minute of that match for a high tackle and New Zealand still won 34-32.
Week six of eight
This is an eight-match tour across six weeks, which is a format almost nobody in the current squad has experienced. Love described it to the Herald as “full-on”, said it “can get overwhelming at times”, and admitted to missing his family and his partner.
That is not a soft admission, it is the accurate one. Long tours are not broken by the opposition, they are broken by the sameness — the same review room, the same warm-up, the same three meals, week after week, until the only thing that still feels sharp is Saturday afternoon. Players get through it by shrinking the horizon down to the next session and refusing to count. That is roughly what Love said he is doing.
Mo’unga has walked into that at week three with none of the accumulated fatigue, none of the scar tissue from Ellis Park, and a Japanese off-season behind him. That is not nothing.
What Mo’unga actually threatens
He is not here to be a mentor, whatever the press conference says.
Mo’unga has 56 caps, three Japanese seasons with Toshiba Brave Lupus and a signed return to the Crusaders. He became eligible again by playing three NPC matches for Canterbury after recovering from a calf injury, and against Bay of Plenty he came on in the 52nd minute, beat three defenders for a try in the 78th and converted it himself. He arrived in South Africa as the replacement for centre Billy Proctor, who fractured a shoulder blade against the Stormers.
Speaking to reporters in Johannesburg, he was careful. “I’ve been so impressed with how he’s played this season, for the Hurricanes and All Blacks,” Mo’unga said of Love, adding that “coming back into this team, it’s not about trying to get back into the 10 jersey”.
Nobody in that room believed the second half of that sentence, including the man saying it.
The Cape Town selection
Rennie’s bigger problem is up front. De Groot and lock Josh Lord clashed heads in the 37th minute at Ellis Park and are both in concussion protocol; prop Ofa Tu’ungafasi, a 68-Test veteran, and Crusaders lock Jamie Hannah have been flown in as cover. Both miss tonight’s Lions fixture.
South Africa have their own call at 10. Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu started the first Test and was held up over the line in the second half, with Manie Libbok covering from the bench. Rassie Erasmus has three Tests left to decide which of them runs this series.
| Test | Date | Venue | Kick-off (SAST) |
|---|---|---|---|
| First | Sat 22 Aug | Ellis Park, Johannesburg | 17:10 — SA 16-33 NZ |
| Second | Sat 29 Aug | DHL Stadium, Cape Town | 17:10 |
| Third | Sat 5 Sep | FNB Stadium, Johannesburg | 17:10 |
| Fourth | Sat 12 Sep | M&T Bank Stadium, Baltimore | 23:00 |
Where I land
Love keeps the jersey in Cape Town, and Mo’unga does not start a Test in this series.
Not because he isn’t good enough — he is the most complete New Zealand first five since Dan Carter, and it isn’t close. Because Rennie has spent seven months building a 9-10-12 axis out of Cam Roigard, Love and Jordie Barrett, three men who have played together at the Hurricanes for years, and you do not pull the middle piece out of that fourteen months before a World Cup to reward a reputation. Mo’unga’s Test is Baltimore, off the bench, with the series settled.
The argument against me is simple and it is the one Rennie will hear all week: New Zealand have not won a series in South Africa in 30 years, they are one win from being able to, and you do not leave a two-time World Cup finalist on the bench for the match that decides it.
Frequently asked
Who is starting at 10 for the All Blacks in the second Test?
Rennie has not named the side yet — the team is expected later this week. Love has started all four Tests under Rennie and Rennie has publicly backed him, so he is the strong favourite.
Why was Richie Mo’unga not eligible earlier?
His three-year contract with Toshiba Brave Lupus in Japan made him ineligible for All Blacks selection. He regained eligibility by playing NPC rugby for Canterbury after signing to rejoin the Crusaders.
When is the second Test and where can I watch it?
Saturday 29 August at DHL Stadium, Cape Town, kick-off 17:10 SAST (4.10pm BST, 3.10am NZST on Sunday). SuperSport in South Africa, Sky Sports in the UK and Ireland, Sky Sport NZ in New Zealand.
Primary sources: the official All Blacks match report from the first Test. Quotes from Ruben Love originally obtained by the NZ Herald; Richie Mo’unga and Dave Rennie quotes from open media sessions in Johannesburg.
