All Black Wallace Sititi is arguably the breakout world rugby star of the year and he can prove himself a future New Zealand great against Ireland on Friday night.
His stunning man of the match performance in the 24-22 victory over England has convinced Dan Carter, one of the greatest to ever play the game, that Sititi can be a future All Blacks captain, after just seven caps.
This endorsement is remarkable for a player who started the season in the Chiefs development squad. Despite having only played 13 Super Rugby matches, Sititi has shown his maturity and an exceptional ability to handle test rugby.
The 22-year-old’s barnstorming start to professional rugby continued against England, and now number one ranked Ireland must try and shackle Sititi as they bid for revenge against the All Blacks, who knocked them out of the World Cup in 2023, in yet another quarter final failure.
Sititi’s stats in the England game showed he is already a force to be reckoned with, and Ireland will have noted he delivered three line breaks, 16 carries, nine tackles and the most running metres of any player on the pitch.
Sititi, whose Samoan international father Semo named him after William Wallace while playing in Scotland, is loving every minute of test action and said after beating England: “I tried to make the most of every chance and it’s just about enjoying it, relaxing and playing our game. Credit to the boys, they give me the licence to do what I do.”
Carter was at Allianz Twickenham to see Sititi in action and test rugby’s record point scorer was sitting next to England’s most capped player, Ben Youngs.
Youngs revealed on the For The Love Of Rugby podcast: “We were sitting with Dan Carter and we were chatting about Sititi, and his view was very clear; he said, ‘he’s a really mature guy, speaks very well, he’s definitely a future All Black captain’, which is some compliment from him, Dan is the greatest of all time, and he obviously regards [Sititi] that highly, talking about him being a future New Zealand captain – he is phenomenal.”
Former All Blacks captain Kieran Read was also watching from the stands at Twickenham and has predicted Sititi will become so important to New Zealand that Ardie Savea, the reigning World Player of the Year, could shift to flanker to accommodate the new star at No8.
Read told Irish Independent’s The Left Wing podcast: “He’s huge. He’s brilliant to watch.
“He’ll have a huge career. It’s funny, right? He played five or six Super Rugby games this year, and just came from nowhere, and the All Blacks picked him.
“He’s got huge raps not just as a player, but as a leader for the future as well. So he’s brilliant – I think he will end up at No8, 100 per cent, and with Sam Cane moving on after this tour, yeah, I think it probably lends itself for Ardie to go to seven.
“He definitely looks to me like a world class No8.”
Savea, has also been praising his new back row partner saying: “He’s been amazing coming into this environment, he’s inspiring his team-mates around and that’s special.”
With Sititi and New Zealand firing on all cylinders, Friday night in Dublin has all the makings of a test match classic.
