Every tour has that one guy who declares, hand on heart, that he is “just going to have a quiet one tonight” — and for the All Blacks this week, that man is Ardie Savea. The tour captain, the human wrecking crew, has been given the night off for the opener, kicked his boots into the corner, and told his mates to wake him when the Tests start. Into the breach steps lock Patrick Tuipulotu with the armband, captaining the black jersey for only the second time — the first being against Japan back in October 2024 — which means he has roughly the same amount of All Black captaincy experience as most of us have of assembling flat-pack furniture: technically done it once, still reads the instructions upside down.
Two rookies get the black jersey and the world’s worst welcome mat
And spare a thought for the two babies of the group. Uncapped prop Siale Lauaki and inside back Josh Jacomb are in line to make their All Blacks debuts off the bench — which is a lovely, storybook moment, right up until you remember WHERE. Not a gentle friendly against a tired club side in the drizzle. No. Their first taste of the famous fern comes on a Friday night in Cape Town, against a Stormers front row that eats debutants for a light pre-dinner snack. It is like being told you passed your driving test and then having the instructor immediately merge you onto the N1 at rush hour, blindfolded, while a stranger throws a scrum at your face.
First-ever meeting, and both camps keep whispering the T-word
Here is the deliciously terrifying part for the men in green: this is the FIRST time the All Blacks and the Stormers have ever met on a rugby field. No history, no film to study, no old grudge to lean on — just two teams walking into a dark room together for the first time, both holding something heavy behind their backs. And both camps have spent the week using the one word you’re not supposed to say about a “tour game”: Test. As in Test-match intensity. As in nobody in that stadium is treating this like a warm-up, least of all the seven other All Blacks pulling on the jersey for the first time this year.
Rennie has rung the changes, blooded the youngsters, and rested his captain — the classic coach’s balancing act of “give the kids a run” and “please, for the love of everything, do not lose the very first match of a 30-years-in-the-making tour in front of a sold-out Cape Town.” Because that is the trap. Lose this one and the whole Republic spends the next six weeks doing the thing South Africans do best: remembering it, out loud, forever, at every braai, with escalating detail.
The armband is on, the kids are strapped in, the fern is flying — now open the door
So the team sheet is out, the plane has long since landed in three suspicious batches, and the All Blacks are officially, actually, standing on our lawn. Ardie snoozes. Tuipulotu leads. Two rookies chew their gumshields and try not to think about it. And 60-odd thousand Capetonians have been saving up a very warm, very physical Friday-night hug since roughly 1996. Welcome to South Africa, gentlemen. The cameras are on. Please talk to the medic if anything comes loose.