Teenager Ruben Love made a strong impression for the Hurricanes in their pre-season match against the Chiefs and the Blues in Upper Hutt last weekend, but could the outside back be forced to play first-five?
Ruben Love taking a conversion at the Game of Three Halves. Photo: Photosport
The 19-year-old, who's yet to make his Super Rugby debut, scored nine points and scored a try from fullback as the Hurricanes were beaten 19-14 by the Chiefs in the first half of the exhibition match.
Hurricanes fans will be hoping it's a sign of things to come from Love, who's regarded as a hugely promising athlete. The former-Palmerston North Boy's High School student represented both the First XV rugby team and the First XI cricket side at High School.
Son of former-Māori All Black, Matene Love, Ruben continued his family's sporting legacy by becoming the first player to be selected in both the New Zealand Under-18 Maori rugby and cricket sides in 2018.
While in his last year at High School, Love was selected to represent both the Under-19 New Zealand cricket team as well as the New Zealand Schools' Rugby team.
Despite his obvious talent in the game of cricket, Love opted to make the transition to professional rugby after Wellington managed to secure his signature in 2019, despite strong efforts from his home province Manawatu.
He made his Mitre 10 cup debut for the Wellington Lions in late 2020 against Bay of Plenty and scored his first professional try on the night with an acrobatic finish in the corner.
Despite operating as a utility back for the Lions, he played predominantly as a fullback throughout High School and can also play at first-five-eighth.
With the Hurricanes' outside-backs looking slightly depleted this season after the departures of Kobus Van Wyk and Ben Lam, it remains to be seen how Hurricanes coach Jason Holland will utilise Love in Super Rugby Aotearoa.
Adding another unknown is the season ending injury to Auckland first-five Simon Hickey, who's Super Rugby campaign for the Hurricanes is over before it began due to a serious knee injury.
With TJ Perenara in Japan and Jordie Barrett expected to play fullback, that leaves Jackson Garden-Bachop as the frontrunner (if he wasn't already) for the number 10 jersey.
However, with Love's history at playmaker his obvious talent and his ability to kick goals (he was handed the goal kicking duties in the pre-season clash with the Chiefs), perhaps he's now an outside chance to fill the playmakers role.
Giving Love a start at fullback against the Chiefs, he gave an impressive performance and continued his habit of scoring on debut, showing his pace to notch his first try as a Hurricane in the 17th minute.
Speaking after the game he said it was a great feeling to make his debut for the team he grew up supporting.
"It was a dream come true, I've always wanted to play for the Hurricanes and even though it's a pre-season game you still get the same nerves that you'd have in a normal game" he said.
Despite being the youngest player in the Hurricanes squad, Love appeared comfortable at fullback orchestrating Salesi Rayasi and Julian Savea in the Hurricanes back-three although he admits it's a strange feeling giving orders to players he grew up watching on TV.
"It's unreal" he said, "Playing inside Jules (Julian Savea), it's a pretty hard thing to tell him what to do, you can imagine you'd rather have him telling you what to do than having to tell the big dog what to do. But it's always been a dream to play with them (Ardie and Julian Savea) because I've always watched them."
Ruben Love at the Game of Three Halves pre-season match Photo: Reef Reid
At late notice, the Hurricanes coaches surprised Love by giving him the responsibility of being the goal-kicker on his debut.
The youngster lived up to the pressure knocking over both conversions successfully and now he's hoping he gets more opportunities with the kicking-tee.
"I loved every minute of it, I've always kicked through high school. It's a pretty funny story I only got a text this morning at 9:30 from Jason Holland saying "You okay to kick today?" I actually don't even have a kicking tee in Wellington so I had been using one of the bro's tees. But I loved kicking and hopefully I can keep doing it."
Reflecting on his performance Love admits that there's a lot he still needs to work on to fine-tune his game to match the demands of Super Rugby Aotearoa.
"There's plenty to improve on, for me I think my biggest work-on is my game awareness, adjusting to the speed and the smarts of the game, I think that's a big one for me as a young one." he said.
As the Hurricanes look to improve upon their third-place finish in last year's Super Rugby Aoteroa, former captain Dane Coles has singled out Love and halfback Luke Campbell as ones-to-watch amongst the new crop of rookies.
"I don't want to give them too big of heads, but Ruben Love is one kid that's showed up and also Luke Campbell" he said, "as long as they keep their feet firmly on the ground, work hard and enjoy every day I'm sure they'll do well."
Earlier this year, Love proved he's fit and ready for the upcoming season as he took out first-place in the Hurricanes annual pre-season 'surf to sky' fitness race with Luke Campbell coming in second.