2. Richie McCaw’s embarrassing moments
This is a bit of a cheap shot against a great player but I don’t think he would mind Aussies “taking the Mickey”—he must be used to it by now.
But there were a few things about his play that we didn’t expect.
• Blues v. Crusaders – In Round 3 Richie missed a tackle and Frank Halai scored for the Blues.
Then from the restart he missed another another tackle on Tevita Li and that was another Blues try.
The Blues won 35-24 and although McCaw wasn’t the only culprit on defence he would be the first to admit that he had a bad two minutes.
• Highlanders v. Crusaders – in Round 15 the the Crusaders won 32-30 in one of the best games of the season. In the 22nd minute a Crusader is pinged defending his line for going off his feet. Shock, horror, it is Richie McCaw and Glen Jackson gives him a yellow card.
If memory serves commentator Scott Stevenson said afterwards: “Somewhere in the world a unicorn has died.”
Maybe he was suggesting that a yellow card to McCaw was a rare event.
• Waratahs v. Crusaders – In the Super Rugby final Craig Joubert pings McCaw in the 79th minute. The referee says: “You weren’t the tackler”.
This supposes there was a tackle and that McCaw, who stayed on his feet could not be defined as a tackler, and therefore had to go through the back gate of the tackle area and not the side gate.
As we all know: Bernard Foley kicked one of the longest goals of his pro career and won the game.
The referee was right: McCaw wasn’t the tackler—for the simple reason that there wasn’t a tackle to start with because the ball carrier was not brought to ground.
What happened was that Tolo Latu picked up the ball from the ruck took a step forward and his left foot caught the back of Rob Horne’s right leg.
He fell over and McCaw was trying to pick up the ball from Latu in general play.
Richie McCaw – was it karma?
Was there anything else McCaw could have been pinged for? Arguably—being offside of the ruck that Latu picked the ball up from.
Players not in the ruck have to be behind the hindmost feet of the hindmost player in the ruck. It doesn’t say it in the laws but “hindmost feet” includes those of players who have gone to ground after the ruck started.
Bernard Foley went to ground and the ruck formed over him. Half his body was in the ruck and his legs were sticking out on the Crusaders’ side. McCaw was behind the last Crusader foot but was in front of the hindmost feet of the hindmost player on his side of the ruck: Foley.
But you say: surely the hindmost player the laws talk about is the hindmost player of a player’s team? The laws don’t say that.
But that is neither here nor there because McCaw wasn’t pinged for being offside anyway..
Regardless, if McCaw and the Crusaders were dudded they were probably not dudded to the same extent as the Waratahs were over the Nadolo try.
People are talking about the McCaw incident because it was at the critical point of the match.
Karma, I say.
