It has been a wonderful World Cup, filled with positive rugby and superlative in spirit. It’s easy to remember the disappointing moments (other than England’s if you happen to be English) because there have been so few of them. It’s quite an irony that my two down moments are wrapped around one of rugby’s greatest players, Richie McCaw.
The first weekend and Wembley Stadium: do you remember it, McCaw’s trip? “Dumb” was the word the All Blacks cognoscenti produced from their rugby lexicon. He’s a canny man that Steve Hansen.
If the glorious rugby has wiped the cynical bits and pieces from your mind, here’s a reminder. Juan Martín Fernández Lobbe took a quick tap penalty and McCaw, lying on the floor, stuck out his foot and deliberately tripped the Argentina back-row forward. Wayne Barnes, the referee, had no option. McCaw was sent to the sin-bin.
In the post-match press conference McCaw, according to reports, looked “sheepish”, as wolves are prone to do in fairytales. Hansen, the All Blacks head coach, set the agenda and the captain admitted that, as mistakes went, this indeed had been dumb. The media circle merrily moved on to the next game, berating Richie’s “dumb” moment.
It was, of course, anything but dumb. He hasn’t become the most decorated rugby player by being dumb. He does not have a dumb instinct in him, but that was how he portrayed the incident: “a reflex thing”. Yes, reflex indeed, but the mind of New Zealand’s captain runs even faster than his instincts. I wrote “cheat”, for that is what every rugby player on this planet is doing every time he deliberately infringes on the field.
McCaw cannot be treated differently to the bloke in the pub team who sticks a foot out and gets away with it because Barnes is not refereeing. But the trip is not the first of the disappointing moments. No, it was the reaction to his misdeed.
The crowd booed him (the great ones attract the most attention) as he walked from the field, shamed by his “dumb” act; fine. It was part of the game, rugby as theatre, McCaw a rare pantomime villain. After the match, when McCaw addressed the interviewer as the winning captain, the jeers and catcalls became a crescendo. This was ugly. McCaw was being insulted for doing what back-row forwards have done since time immemorial. You don’t have to defend cynicism to stand against the baying of the crowd.
Down south, the word “cheat” went down badly, so a Kiwi informed me. The same week I sat next to Jack Rowell, my mentor at Bath, one of rugby’s great minds. He marched through more than a decade of dominance at Bath with his copy of Machiavelli up his sleeve. Even he thought the wording was too strong.
Jack was right, but the phrasing was intended to provoke; to provoke people into realising that breaking the laws of the game is — not to put it too cynically — part of the game. McCaw is simply better than the rest. To call a flanker a “cheat” is not an insult: it’s a fact of life. To call him “dumb”, now that would be insulting. Hansen can get away with it. He doesn’t mean it.
England should approach McCaw to fix their breakdown. There are the official laws and the ones the best play by. Those who play by the former are never going to make it. So yes, Richie cheats but Richie rules.
The other great disappointment was the attempt to “get McCaw” in reaction to the Francois Louw injury, in which there were calls for the New Zealand player to be cited after the pair collided in the semi-final. Hansen thought there was nothing to it and wanted to “move on”. “It was kicked off by social media and I’m not a big fan of social media,” he said. God bless you, Steve Hansen. This was a Wembley moment that could have “gone viral”. Let’s call it a witch hunt, as something that didn’t happen shifted towards fact. By Sunday morning in the Twickenham media centre, journalists wondered whether McCaw would miss the final.
Evidence? Not a shred. Complaints from the man who had 20 stitches as a result of McCaw’s skulduggery? None. But they say traffic was heavy on the social media sites. Was it anything but the volume of social media fury that led World Rugby to hang Craig Joubert out to dry after his mistake that cost Scotland a semi-final place.
Hansen regards those who sniffed McCaw’s blood with condescension. But World Rugby took heed of the furore and said that the incident had been studied and McCaw deemed innocent. Does this mean that every time there is outrage on social media authorities have to bow to populist anger?
Yes, McCaw has got away with plenty in his career. His knowledge, stealth and aura around referees make him the complete package. He’ll have to grab a few laws and bend them on Saturday but that’s the man and his game. Leave the detective work to Nigel Owens.
Celebrate rugby for its passion and craft. Celebrate it for the dignity of men such as McCaw and the courage and selflessness he has brought to the game. Creaking and straining into his mid-30s, Saturday is one of the tests of his life. As usual he will do what he must for the sake of his team. Scream at Owens if he misses McCaw’s trickery but not McCaw. He’s only doing his job
