Moana Pasifika took the shackles off Ardie Savea and he won MVP

Moana Pasifika loose forward Ardie Savea has been named the inaugural MVP of Super Rugby Pacific in his first season with the club.

Savea was leading the captain and coach-driven vote by eight points headed into Saturday night’s contest against the Blues, and he clinched the award with two rounds to go with a signature showing in the historic win.

It’s been a special season for the former Hurricane and 2023 World Player of the Year despite the scepticism over his move.

The 31-year-old was vocal about the doubts he received about joining Moana, who had been one of the bottom teams in the competition for years before he joined. On radio,o he shared comments from others involved in New Zealand rugby who said he would regress as a player.

Yet, Savea at Moana has been the opposite, perhaps the best version of himself as a player and showing all his skills. The MVP is proof. Taking Moana to the playoffs (potentially) is more proof.

Perhaps what is most intriguing about Savea’s on-field exploits this year is the style of his play. We’ve seen Savea pull out dazzling skills that were not witnessed at all during his years at the Hurricanes.

He has pulled out chip kicks, grubber kicks, and had the freedom to create and take risk. He scored the greatest try never awarded and then scored another similar the week after.

This is not new for Savea. This way of playing is how he played as a schoolboy. Savea was an instinctual No.7 who had dynamic athleticism like his older brother. He also had a knack for seeing what others couldn’t and making off-script plays.

He would take the ball from the base of the ruck down a blindside and run 80 metres, running sideways around defenders before offloading or kicking ahead and setting up a try for others or himself.

Some of the highlights he has this year with Moana are eerily similar to what he did as a schoolboy.

The difference at Moana, it seems, is he has the trust and license to play what he sees if the opportunity arises, in a way that was never afforded at the Hurricanes.

Moana’s hat-trick hero Kyren Taumoefolau showed a touch of this in his last try of the night against the Blues, grubber kicking past Beauden Barrett and scoring.

Wingers are not coached to do that. Certainly not instructed to try do it. This kind of freedom has been coached out of players in favour of structure and predictability in the low-risk cauldron of professional rugby.

Moana certainly have a lot of structure, a game plan suited to the power players and a first five that can direct the team around. But they have a special element of unscripted play that is unique.

Touching on the team that Savea left, the Hurricanes, whose mantra used to be ‘expect the unexpected’.

After winning the title in 2016, the prevailing style became all about the carry and clean. A power game. Win collisions and bash the ball up. It was the way the professional game was going after all. But they lost something good about the Hurricanes in the process.

The identity shifted to something much more conservative and less appealing over time, although it was still relatively successful. They had TJ Perenara and Beauden Barrett to create the spark and when Barrett left they lost a lot of the magic.

For most of Ardie’s time at the Hurricanes they were contenders with this approach but couldn’t find their way back to a final. Something was missing and still is with the Hurricanes.

In 2024, with Savea on sabbatical, they had their best season since winning the title, finishing top of the log with a 12-2 record only to be upset by the Chiefs at home in the semi-final.

Maybe Savea has found what was missing at the Canes with Moana Pasifika, where there is more purpose, a cultural identity and a way of playing allows for Savea to truly be Savea.

Coming in fresh to the club but as the leader, it was on Savea to carve a new path for Moana and he has done that and in the process won MVP.