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'I know what it's like': How Richie McCaw's 'selfless' leadership rubbed off on a debutant
Having logged the most Test caps as captain in rugby history, one might expect Richie McCaw’s leadership skills to be fairly impressive, but rarely do we hear any specific example of his greatness in action.
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James Parsons’ All Blacks debut was against Scotland in 2014 and came under the reign of Richie, the hooker recalled an interaction during the match that left a lasting impression on him.
The story came about on RugbyPass‘ The Aotearoa Rugby Pod as Parsons and commentary great Grant Nisbet discussed their favourite All Blacks of all time.
“I got presented my jersey by Richie,” Parsons said. “My first jersey so I’m fairly fond of him and the way I hold him in high regard, for the era I came through.
“I stuffed up a lineout on debut and he was the jumper, and he came up to me at the next scrum and he was like ‘mate, I was a bit slow across the ground’ and so all of a sudden, my debut, I’m like ‘beauty! that’s not my fault, skip’s got me!’ and packed down for the scrum.
“And after the game he goes ‘mate, I know what it’s like’ – this is the level of leadership and thought he had – he’s like ‘I wanted to take the pressure off you but it was overthrown so let’s just have a look at that during the week and rectify it’.
“I just thought that’s amazing, in a pressure situation, Test match, he has the ability to know that I needed that pressure relieved to get the best out of me for the rest of the game. It’s just things like that you’ve got to admire, he is quite a selfless player.”
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McCaw’s career saw him claim two World Cup titles, seven Tri-Nations/Rugby Championship titles and 10 Bledisloe Cup series. For the Crusaders, he won four Super Rugby titles, three of which he was captain for.
Grant Nisbet delivered the name of the player who he believes to be the best he has witnessed in the 300 Test matches he’s commentated.
“I’ve been lucky enough to see some of the great All Blacks, If I’m asked a name like greatest ever All Black who I saw, it’s always Christian Cullen. He was an absolute freak. An absolute freak.”
Comments on RugbyPass
While Iose is destructive in the Canes set-up, he is not big for an international 8 and could struggle against the top teams. With his speed, he could be developed into a seven but, as Ben points out, he doesn’t show a scavenging game with the Canes or make dominating tackles. Sotutu has shown a step up this year and attitude plus motivation seems to be the big areas of growth. Deserves another AB shot imo.
3 Go to commentsNaholo is my only question mark for this side. He wasn’t the only one who had a forgettable game against the Brumbies but he was passive, defensively poor and generally lacked energy. Needs to get a whole lot busier for me. I would have liked to see Sullivan on that wing with Higgins on the bench (if staying with a 6-2 as BeegMike points out on here!)
3 Go to commentsWell, I am sure that Eben said exactly what he meant to say, exactly how he meant to say it. Does he strike you as a man that doesn't know arrogance when he sees it. He should know it because he has shaken the arrogance out of many foes before.
126 Go to commentsPls get it into your thick arrogant heads that the final was played by two Southern Hemisphere teams. The best against the best and that Argentina was just unlucky otherwise non of the Northetn Hemisphere teams would have seen the light of day.
126 Go to commentsAs long as New Zealand youth are involved in sport they are passionate for, and are well supported, it’s all good. I love league as well as rugby. NRL clubs have long since scouted the First 15 competitions, the NH and Japan scout super rugby and NPC. It’s a miracle there’s any players left for the all blacks to pick from.
4 Go to commentsI'm a Bok fan, so I don't say this lightly, but he is one of my all time favourite players. I am really going to miss watching him play. Thanks for many great memories. You are a true legend of the game.
3 Go to commentsBest way to deal with all of this is to play another game.
126 Go to commentsIt’s 12-15 games Luke. Ringrose has barely played in 2024 and Henshaw and Keenan have also been out for spells in the same time period. There are always injuries and for younger players to play with the likes of Barrett will be great for them. It’s just looking for negatives where there are none.
5 Go to commentsAndy Goode pushing his own agenda with very dubious considerations on refereeing performances. Luke Pearce speaking a bit of French doesn’t make him a good and adequate referee for the Champions Cup final; his latest refereeing performance in particular was not so great.
4 Go to commentsJordie knows that he has to earn the right to put on the jersey, whatever that jersey might be.
5 Go to commentsThe best outside centre in the world at one point. He will be greatly missed.
3 Go to commentsYip his great for the big moments when needed as a safa really enjoy watching him
4 Go to commentsOne that will start to come up from now on is penalties for back pushes during kick chase scrambles. Very difficult to detect. In Croke Park if you replay the Hendy NH try, you will see Furbank push Porter in the back, who collides with Larmour knocking the ball across into Hendy’s path to dot down. A more significant example was in the RWC QTR final where Arendse pushes Fickou into two other French players for the ball to spill into Arendse’s path for him to gather and run in to score SAs first try. Not cheating if you are not caught and very difficult to spot but with kicking becoming so critical I feel its an area that will referreeed/TMO-ed more.
4 Go to commentsWhat a pathetic little twit Andy Goode is, as if we care what he thinks…..😂
126 Go to commentsFoxy has been a wonderful player for the Scarlets and Wales.
3 Go to commentsNika the Georgian is the best referee in the world at the moment. Luckily we will be spared the shite SH refs and Barnes will hopefully remain retired given how shite and embarrassing he was at the RWC.
4 Go to commentsThis is the most exciting game of the summer imo, as we really won’t know in advance how both teams are going to play. - Will Robertson just reproduce his Crusaders tactics from last year, or will there be a conscious effort to borrow from the Hurricanes and Blues, and from the aspects of the ABs world cup strategy that worked well? - England under Borthwick have put in some good performances playing attacking rugby, and some good performances playing kick-oriented defensive rugby. Will Borthwick try to merge them together into a single all-court game, or will he continue switching between different approaches depending on the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition?
1 Go to commentsI’m predicting an aggregate points difference of no more than +/-10pts across both matches this series.
1 Go to commentsI’m predicting an aggregate points difference of no more than +/-10pts across both matches this series.
9 Go to commentsFinals are always tense affairs for the players so I do not expect this to be a spectacle of running rugby unfortunately.
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