Rugby-Ardie the All Black wows Wellington

By Greg Stutchbury WELLINGTON, June 19 (Reuters) - It did not take long for All Blacks' rookie openside flanker Ardie Savea to attain cult status in Wellington, with his hometown crowd launching into a raucous chant as soon as he took the field against Wales on Saturday. "Ardie! Ardie! Ardie!" a crowd of almost 36,000 bellowed as soon as the 22-year-old stepped onto the field at Wellington Regional Stadium for his second test, with the chants swelling to a crescendo when he scored a brilliant 40-metre try. His team mates repeated the chant in the changing room after the game but the younger brother of All Blacks winger Julian did his best to avoid the good-natured teasing. "He was quick to run to the showers and hide away from the attention," loose forward Jerome Kaino told reporters in Wellington on Sunday. "But Ardie is quite a mature kid for his age (and) he's got a good head on his shoulders," he said, adding that the departure of Wellington Hurricanes stalwart Conrad Smith to Pau in France after the World Cup had left a void. "The Wellington crowd (needs) a cult figure now that Conrad has gone. It's good that Ardie has (become) that but it probably won't go to his head." Savea had long been touted as a potential All Blacks player, being named by national coach Steve Hansen as an 'apprentice' for their end of year tour to the northern hemisphere in 2013. Hansen knew it was a matter of when, not if, the then 20-year-old would be joining his older brother in the national squad and he wanted to get some insight into his character. "We gave him that tour, he was never going to be selected and he knew that from the beginning," Hansen said. "He wasn't an All Black, he was just touring with us as a young guy. "He was one of those guys who was always going to be an All Black and it was just a case of when. He is a pretty special player." BULKING UP Savea was a standout athlete and student at Rongotai College, the same school in Wellington's eastern suburbs that Julian and fellow All Black Ma'a Nonu attended, where he was head prefect and also appeared in a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. Making his provincial debut for Wellington in 2012, he was initially considered too small to play Super Rugby when he advanced to the Hurricanes in 2013. Standing 1.90 metres tall, he barely weighed 90kgs and looked like the centre he played while at Rongotai, though he was a loose forward in representative teams. Hansen said All Blacks' strength and conditioning coach Nic Gill had got his hands on him on that 2013 tour and he had since bulked up sufficiently to handle the rigours of top-level rugby. Savea now tips the scales at close to 100kgs, Hansen said, without losing any of the speed which saw him clock 11.3 seconds for the 100 metres and made him a standout rugby sevens player. He had been earmarked to play at the Rio Olympics but instead withdrew from contention in late April to concentrate on the full version of the game, earning his first All Blacks cap against Wales at Eden Park on June 11. Savea's leg drive and explosive speed helped the All Blacks to a late burst to record a 39-21 victory in the first test and it was little surprise he was named again for the clash in his home town. As one of three local players on the bench, Savea's introduction in the 58th minute created a massive stir amongst the Wellingtonians, though the reaction had not been lost on his Hurricanes captain Dane Coles. "He's only played two tests," the hooker said with a laugh. "He might be Wellington's favourite son; Snakey (Conrad Smith) has gone and no one likes me. "I'll have to have a word to him." (Editing by Peter Rutherford)