Sky Sport NZ's The Breakdown rolled out the now-familiar All Blacks question this week with one new wrinkle: Dave Rennie has his coaching staff locked in, the 2027 World Cup is barely eighteen months away, and the captaincy is the only call left on the table. The panel did not give Rennie a clean answer. They gave him a public split.
The most decisive case was made for Ardie Savea, with one Breakdown panellist moving off his original Codie Taylor pick over a fortnight of reflection. 'Codie Taylor would be a great captain, but having thought about that and as time has evolved, I think Ardie's, for me, the perfect candidate,' he said. 'You've got a guy there that has, one, got an existing relationship already with Dave Rennie. And the one thing in this jersey is what he's done in this jersey. Dave Rennie's got 18 months, and that's a requirement that he's there to win the Rugby World Cup. And if you're there for a short period of time, considering what Ardie did for Moana Pasifika and how he sort of did it - he's your captain.'
The second panellist refused to budge from his original Taylor call. 'I'm on the record I think Codie Taylor should be the captain. I'm going to stay - and that hasn't changed.' He drew on his own playing days under Richie McCaw to push back on the framing of the conversation altogether. 'Isn't it overhyped? I was not convinced that really really matters. We were lucky enough to play for a guy who was beyond comparison as far as a captain goes in Richie McCaw. But I've never played with anyone close to that sort of captain - and Codie ticks those boxes.'
The more interesting line of the segment came in defence of why the call still matters for this particular squad. The Savea backer leaned in. 'I think it matters massively for this group because they're going through a lot of change in a short period of time, and they've got 18 months to get it right. And if you don't pick the right person to lead that group...' He left the sentence unfinished, but the point was made.
The argument for Taylor is conventional and structural - a hooker who plays every minute, who has the institutional memory of three World Cup cycles, and who keeps his own engine on a level that makes him hard to lift on or off the field. The argument for Savea, as the panel laid out, is a different theory of captaincy entirely. Coming off the season at Moana Pasifika - where, as the panel noted, 'how he sort of did it' produced both a personal Player of the Year shortlist and a turnaround in the Pacific franchise's identity - Savea is being framed less as a steady hand and more as a force-of-personality leader who can drag a squad through a compressed eighteen-month rebuild.
What the Breakdown segment did not resolve, and what Rennie himself has yet to publicly resolve, is whether the All Blacks need that. The contrast on Sky Sport's couch crystallised the choice in two sentences: 'When you've got Codie Taylor, Scott Barrett, Ardie Savea and the likes all in one forward pack, does it really matter who runs out first?' versus 'I think it matters massively for this group.' Both panellists are right about something. Eighteen months from now, only one of them will be right about Rennie.
