Richie McCaw to miss the rest of Rugby Championship

New Zealand captain Richie McCaw is expected to miss the rest of the Rugby Championship after he injured his knee in the All Blacks 28-13 victory over Argentina's Pumas in Hamilton.

All Black coach Steve Hansen said that he expects McCaw to miss the next four to five weeks which puts his return from a medial ligament injury after the Rugby Championship has completed.

Hansen also said that the bad weather conditions in the match had a big impact on the game but praised the teams for continuing to try and play positive rugby.

The coach said that many of the errors in the match were down to the conditions as most were in the contact area or in catching.

"I think both sides really struggled to control the football in the conditions so it is a shame that had such a big influence on the game," Hansen told Sportal.

Vice Captain Kieran Read is expected to take over the All Black captaincy in McCaw's absence and he said that the conditions made it more of a contest between the packs.

"We stood up really well, I thought our pack was outstanding tonight, " said Read.

"We competed really hard in the set piece and on defence as well, it was probably our best effort this year," he said.

Hansen said that he was pleased with second five-eighths Francis Saili performance with the exception of the dropped ball which handed Argentina a try.

"If you wanted to start a Test match, you probably wouldn't want to start it like that," said Hansen.

"I think it showed a lot of character for him to bounce back from that. I thought he carried well, I don't think he dropped a ball after that and he went into contact nicely for us at times. "

"He showed us he's got a nice left foot and threw a lovely pass when we scored from that try so he did enough things to be satisfied," he said.

"When you see (fullback) Israel Dagg drop a high ball you know it is hard because he is the best in the world at it."

"We won't look too hard at those kind of errors. We will look at tidying up our structures around the park," he said.

"I think there are enough positives there to look forward to next week," he said.

Hansen added that Read's performance was as good as the selectors expected as they regard him as the best No.8 in world rugby.

Mccaw is the talisman for NewZealand especially at the ruck area where the AllBlacks are able to put opposition of their game. 

He is good at preventing opposition teams from picking up momentum and implementing thier game plan, as he is a constant thorn in the side.

Still its going to be the hardest game of the year, but should be interesting if the Boks can be as effective at the breakdowns as was the case against Australia. 

The main area of concern for the boks was the rolling maul. Not sure why but Australia stopped this everytime before it got any momentum.

Even the first try the maul did not go far before the breakoff by Coenie. 

What is also surprising me is why Coenie only gets the last 12 minutes of a game.

I would rather start with him and bring Jannie of the bench.

I am keen to see how the Scrums go for both teams. So far the new scrum rules have worked out well for the Boks. 

The Al Baxter days for Australia of trickery at scrum time are gone, now it is about power and "technique"- not trickery being classified as techniue.

The All Blacks are good scrummagers but so are the Boks, but we are bigger so will be interesting to see. 

The Wallies probably took an even worse beating as scrums than when against the British Lions

@mikey,

if u follow the All Blacks behind the scenes getting updates from the All Black camps from their weekly news letters etc, u would know that McCaw 108kg was his weight before he ran out for his first crusaders match. hes been playing around 103kg for every All Black tests.

he did give away two penalties against the pumas, but his workrate was amongst the highest in the field. i counted less then 12 breakdowns in the opening 20mins where McCaw wasnt one of the first 3 kiwi players there, his high tackle count adn link work proves hes still got more ticker left.

the nature of his injury wasnt a case of his body giving way either, it happened when charlie faumina landed on his leg while it was at a crazy angle. im surprised hes only going to be out for 5 weeks, had charlie lannded on a saffa, im pretty sure they would have died, LMAO, :oP

ur right about the time it takes older players to recover from injuries though, part and parcel of the game, but the kiwis know McCaws value and weve got the numbers to prove that retirement is in the rest of the worlds best interest, not the All Blacks, -_o

Sasuke, you are waisting yorur time. You can even put up a video of McCaw and all you need is for someone like Beeno to say that you have lied and that wouild be prove enough for ou Maaikie, that you are bullshitting about the game and he would of course rubbish your video as well.

Still the wild allegations without a single shed of proof. Go back to that thread and give me your minute by miunte analysis, from the video clip. Coward.

sorry boys to disappoint you but McCaw is just another cog in the Team! Key word = Team!

Why then the special effort to extend his and Carter's services? Sabbaticals and all kinds of plans to keep him going.  Nah, you guys are so dependant on them, it is not even funny. Let's face it. All players in all teams are just cogs in a team, but some of the cogs are just a bit more important than the others. And if one of those important cogs even gets a teeth missing, the team could find itself in a bit of trouble.

Who said King Ritchie is out for the rest of the comp? Not what i heard.

Not very Christian like either Brother Bueno to celebrate someone being injured. tsk tsk.

Would like to congratulate the Boks fans though ...for not having an epic whinge about the ref.

Still trying to figure why that was the case.???

O yea that's right, you guys won haha..

 the ABs need McCaw and Carter for their modeling value - for their pretty faces amongst all those ugly mugs

Ceradyne: Your question: "Why then the special effort to extend his (Richie) and Carter's services?"

Answer: depth :)

Just cogs in the mighty All Black machine mate, lol

steinlager1: you mentioned bother beeno, but we haven't seen much of him since the Boks surprisingly had their magnificent win. I think he was so shocked he was finally right about something he had a heart attack. Here is my evidence, lol

Thats almost as funny as a Springbok coach JW.