Ruben Love, eh? The stand-in Hurricanes fly-half certainly isn’t the worst. I won’t proclaim him the next great New Zealand No.10, but he has an admirable skill set and the apparent temperament to make the shift from fullback a permanent one.
I see the Hurricanes’ nominal No.10s, Brett Cameron and Harry Godfrey, are nearing the end of their injury-enforced absences, but I wonder if Love might not be a better option.
Some players just have something about them, which sets them apart from their peers.
Take Ardie Savea. I’ve seen bigger, stronger, more athletic loose forwards than him over the years.
When Savea first emerged on the Wellington and Hurricanes scene, plenty of people said he was too small to succeed.
He didn’t have the power to be a No.6 or a No.8 eight, nor the prowess over the ball to become a genuine No.7.
Savea has since proven himself to be both his own man and his own kind of loose forward. Through sheer will, he has become one of the great loose forwards in the game and his impact upon Moana Pasifika this season speaks volumes about his abilities as a leader.
Ruben Love passes during a Hurricanes Super Rugby training session at Hutt Recreation Ground. (Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)
How he’s not All Blacks captain, I’ll never know. That’s a bit of a digression, but I mention Savea in an effort to compliment Love.
If he had to play halfback, I reckon Love would be excellent. He’d do you a job at 12, score tries for fun on the wing and we already know how handy he can be as a fullback or fly-half.
Godfrey has promise and Cameron, well, I just think he’s always going to be a rung below elite.
I doubt the Hurricanes have planned to see what life’s like with Love as their primary playmaker, but sometimes circumstances dictate the direction you go in. Love is just an out-and-out footballer, as Savea is.
The sport is littered with fine athletes who possess limited rugby-playing ability, while we’ve seen plenty of robotic No.10s over the years, who kick well but offer very little else to a team.
I watched Love mastermind the Hurricanes’ comfortable win over the Chiefs on Saturday and felt like I was watching an All Black. And not just any old bloke, who earns a cap or two on an end-of-year tour, but a genuine week-to-week starter.
Guys thrust into the role Love’s been handed at the Hurricanes would be forgiven for playing within themselves. No-one would criticise him if he sought to play an anonymous role; kick deep and often, shuffle the ball onto the blokes outside him and generally do all you can not to be shown up.
Instead, Love played with total confidence. He showed vision, intent and accuracy of the sort that, at least to me, marked him out as a player who can’t be out of Test reckoning for long.
Many of us – I think All Blacks coach Scott Robertson included – pine for the return of Richie Mo’unga. Others hope Beauden Barrett has one last hurrah left in him or that Damian McKenzie can still become a reliable Test playmaking option.
I’d be surprised if Love rose above any of them in the pecking order between now and the 2027 Rugby World Cup, but I think he’s at least worth a start or two in the interim and then well-placed to succeed them when the time comes.
Watching Love in his primary role at fullback, I thought he was a nice player. Obviously quite talented, but unlikely to go down as an All Blacks great in that position.
But, as you can probably tell, I’ve been really taken by his performances as a fly-half and reassured that New Zealand has options coming through.
We’ve had a decade of Barrett, Mo’unga and McKenzie. Anyone else with aspirations to play fly-half or fullback for the All Blacks has often been flat out of luck.
Two of the three have routinely been in the starting XV over that span, with the other to come off the bench at some stage.
This time last year, I was probably banging the drum for Harry Plummer. Not because I thought he was especially good, more because I felt he could play the kind of structured football the All Blacks seemed to be crying out for.
Love’s yet to prove he can guide a team to the Super Rugby Pacific title, as Plummer did, but I think he’s definitely got more of the all-around game you need to be a success at 10.
I could be dead wrong. The Hurricanes could turn to Godfrey and Cameron, as soon as physically possible, and Love might never be seen at fly-half in Super Rugby again.
But I actually think he could develop into quite a special player in that position and offer the All Blacks a viable starter from 2027 and beyond.
As I say, there’s just something about that guy.
Hamish Bidwellhttps://https://ift.tt/G3XKvJ8 rise of an All Blacks No.10 bolter – ‘he could develop into a special player in that position’
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