{"id":981,"date":"2021-09-05T04:45:32","date_gmt":"2021-09-05T04:45:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=981"},"modified":"2021-09-05T04:45:32","modified_gmt":"2021-09-05T04:45:32","slug":"all-blacks-captaincy-a-dream-for-savea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=981","title":{"rendered":"All Blacks captaincy a dream for Savea"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ardie Savea will realise a childhood dream when he leads the All Blacks in tonight’s Rugby Championship test against the Wallabies in Perth.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Ardie

Photo: Andrew Cornaga\/Photosport Ltd 2021<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Savea will captain the All Blacks for the first time, having been appointed to the role for the Rugby Championship in the absence of Sam Whitelock and Aaron Smith.<\/p>\n

The 52-test flanker has thought about what it will be like to lead his teammates out on to the field and stand at the front of the haka.<\/p>\n

“You know it’s something you kind of only really dream about when you’re a kid,” Savea said.<\/p>\n

“I’m just happy and grateful that mum and dad will be watching on the TV…watching the All Blacks go out and seeing their son go out too and lead so it’ll be awesome.”<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old concedes he is “new to this” captaincy role and has leaned on the team’s other leaders, including vice-captains Brodie Retallick and Beauden Barrett in the lead-up to the test.<\/p>\n

“It’s still a learning curve for myself. I’m just grateful and lucky that I have great leaders beside me that are driving the ship as well.”<\/p>\n

Savea has received a number of messages of support from past teammates.<\/p>\n

-Via RNZ<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ardie Savea will realise a childhood dream when he leads the All Blacks in tonight’s Rugby Championship test against the Wallabies in Perth. Savea will captain the All Blacks for the first time, having been appointed to the role for the Rugby Championship in the absence of Sam Whitelock and Aaron Smith. The 52-test flanker […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174,6],"tags":[59,141],"class_list":["post-981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news","category-sports","tag-featured","tag-sports"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=981"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":983,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981\/revisions\/983"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}