Richie McCaw is not a man you would a pursue a dodgy line of questioning with.
The two-time Rugby World Cup winner was a fearsome player on the pitch, and while he is mannerly off it now in retirement mode, you suspect that asking him about why he was such a cheating fecker, and how he got away with it time after time, would not go down too well.
So Matt Cooper of Today FM waited until the final moments of his lengthy interview with the rugby legend this evening on the Last Word to get down to the nitty-gritty questions all Irish fans wanted to be asked.
McCaw faced Ireland several times over his lengthy career, but never suffered a loss to the boys in green.
📸 Two wristy hurlers (Richie McCaw & Paul Schütte) at @AIGIreland today. pic.twitter.com/sgPjKJNBvi
— Dublin GAA (@DubGAAOfficial) April 19, 2016
The flanker admitted he was proud never to have slumped to a defeat, despite several near misses, but was at a loss to why Ireland are still waiting for a first-ever win over the All Blacks.
“When we go to play Ireland, we realise you can’t take it lightly.
“In all the games, maybe two or three games at least it was knife-edge, and we had no right to win the last one ( at the Aviva stadium in 2013) but we got there.
“It’s fine lines; they say the All Blacks are 100, and the other teams are 95, 96, it doesn’t take much to change that.
“We respect and know that if you are not on your game, you’ll be tripped up.We knew that might happen with Ireland. It will happen one day.”
McCaw, of course, made his debut against Ireland in 2001 and he recalled the Irish player who he felt was the best to play against in his 14-year career.
“Probably Brian O’Driscoll. Every game I played against Ireland he was in the opposition and you knew he was out there I have a lot of respect for what he did.”
Cooper did ask McCaw how he felt about avoiding being pinged for being offside all of his life, and the World Cup winner laughed it off, claiming that he was stunned when he was yellow carded for his infringements at the breakdown.
“I got three too many I reckon”.
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