McCaw planning in the Sin Bin

·  with 129 selections, he's the highest capped player ever

·  with 114 international wins, another world record.

·  with 92 matches as captain, he's established the best win record.

·  he's got a high win record (89,14%). Amongst the 496 players with 50 caps or more, only Conrad Smith (77 selections, 90,25%) and Sam Whitelock (56 sélections, 91,07%) have done better.

·  81 wins as captain (world record).

·  23 tries scored (world record for a Tier 1 forward).

·  11 tries vs Australia (record for one player vs one Tier 1 nation).

We know who does have this influence. Richie McCaw. McCaw’s smashing, forceful and, despite the yellow cards, very skilful reading of play makes him a force of nature on the rugby field, among the very greatest ever to play the game.

This brings me to a matter I have raised from time to time on The Roar. And that is the stupid accusation by Greg Martin and Phil Kearns that McCaw ‘cheats’ every ruck he is involved in.

This stupidity goes from these commentators to the general public and becomes a mantra of Australian rugby. Somehow from here it seems to flow into the coaching systems.

The old-timer Matt Hodgson is the only tough scrapper for the ruck ball in Australian rugby. Hooper goes in with his hands but he rarely has a physical influence on the rucks.

Instead of making accusations about McCaw’s play that are patently wrong, the commentators and the coaches should be examining how he operates, how he makes his decisions, his positioning, his mental quickness (which is often far ahead of referees, and commentators) and his energy in making the hits that change the outcomes of Tests"

Hakwa: how could anyone disagree?

All things being equal, the Wallabies should defeat a lacklustre Springboks side at Perth. While Robbie Deans was criticised for losing too many Tests against the All Blacks, his teams were more successful than most Wallabies sides against the Springboks."

But Beeno, we kiwis fully support wee Matfield. He is a fine player & we look forward to him playing the ABs.

Hakwa; yes you are right wee Matfield could be considered one of ours. In fact he is part kiwi (true), lol A little known fact.

Poor ol' matfield is fading away because he is not big enough to fight for food scraps in the Bock training camp diner table. He is skin and bone, poor wee chap.