RWC 2015: Steve Hansen irked that Richie McCaw is centre of attention

New Zealand came through their World Cup semi-final against South Africa 20-18

Richie McCaw (GETTY IMAGES)

The All Black nation currently worships Richie McCaw as a secular saint, although the great New Zealand captain will surely be elevated to a seat at God’s right hand if he leads his country to one more World Cup victory at Twickenham in five days’ time. The word “if” is relevant in more ways than one, however, and it may well be that the Chosen One considered spending at least part of his Sabbath in the nearest church.

Precious few rugby watchers were prepared to bet as much as a groat on McCaw being cited for giving the Springbok forward Francois Louw a clout with his elbow, accidental or otherwise, early in the second quarter of Saturday’s witheringly hard semi-final, from which the Kiwis emerged 20-18 victors. Steve Hansen, the All Black head coach, was among the more predictable nay- sayers. “There’s nothing in it, so there’s nothing to talk about,” he said. “Move on.”

But in the age of social media, with instant slow-motion replays on a dozen different platforms and enough white noise on the Twittersphere to drown out even the loudest protestations of innocence, neither Hansen nor McCaw could feel completely in the clear. Especially as World Rugby, the sport’s governing body, has developed a fondness for friendly fire. Anyone seen Craig Joubert recently?

Striking with the elbow carries a minimum sanction of a two-week ban and the citing officer has up to 36 hours after the match has ended to lodge a complaint, setting a 6am deadline this morning. Louw, meanwhile, had two wounds to his forehead which needed an eye-watering 20 stitches.

Given the sudden furore, Hansen felt he was not quite in a position to take his own advice. Instead of moving on, he stayed with the subject by saying: “Richie is a man who draws a lot of attention because he’s a great player – maybe the greatest in the history of the game. If he’s not in your team, he’s a pain in the rear end. If you can’t get him on the track, you get him off the track. It’s a mark of respect, really. He takes it in his stride.”

One unfortunate aspect of all this is that McCaw and Louw have some history: a little over a year ago, the New Zealander clattered his rival while clearing out a ruck during a Rugby Championship tie in Wellington – a collision that left the South African in need of neck surgery. Some of the Springbok fraternity’s higher-profile members, including the former coach Nick Mallett and the one-time captain Bob Skinstad, voiced their concern over the incident, but Louw distanced himself from the fuss. “It was a massive hit, but there was nothing more to it than that,” he said in an interview with this newspaper earlier this year.

While McCaw is a worthy candidate for early canonisation, he is no angel: when he led his country to the world title in Auckland four years ago, there were mutterings from the defeated French about his frank and forthright approach at the tackle area. But he is one hell of a player all the same. Together with the outside-half Daniel Carter, another man heading towards Test retirement at a rate of knots, he was utterly relentless against the Boks at the weekend. When it comes to drive and desire, his levels are off the scale.

McCaw, Carter, the centres Conrad Smith and Ma’a Nonu… next week’s showpiece may signal the end of the international road for all four of them. Under the circumstances, then, the semi-final was as much an emotional obstacle as a physical and tactical one: had they allowed themselves to be distracted by deep-seated sentiment, they could easily have been reduced to quivering wrecks.

To their credit, they held it together with aplomb. “The most beautiful thing about the man beside me and those other guys,” said Hansen yesterday, cheek by jowl with Smith, “is that none of this is about them. Not yet. All the send-off stuff is a secondary objective.”

If the Kiwis were in danger of losing at the weekend – and a two-point advantage with 11 minutes left was not much to write home about – they did not let on. There was nothing remotely fidgety about them at the last knockings, no hint of a meltdown. When half the starting line-up already know what it is to slip World Cup winners’ medals over their bull necks, game management under pressure is the rugby equivalent of falling off a log.

Ben Smith, the best full-back in the tournament by a distance best measured with a milometer, was good value for his man-of-the-match award, but the man from Dunedin – a player who may or may not have learnt all he knows during a brief spell playing junior rugby in Bristol – would have been the first to acknowledge that the prize could have gone to Carter or Nonu or the lock Brodie Retallick. On reflection, it should have gone to Retallick.

Up against the second-row pairing of the tournament, Lood de Jager and the ferocious Eben Etzebeth, the Bay of Plenty second-rower hurt South Africa both at the line-out and in the loose, tackling his considerable weight in all corners of the field and carrying the ball with intent to cause grievous harm to the Springbok spirit.

And the best thing about Retallick? Retirement is not on his horizon and will not be until the 2023 World Cup, if then. He means an awful lot to this All Blacks team and will mean a whole lot more to the next vintage. A New Zealand captain in the making? Almost certainly. Life after McCaw will come as a shock, but the big man from Rangiora will make it liveable.