McCaw's leadership is unchallenged

Laying bare a prejudice that has marked his journalistic career, Stephen Jones of The Sunday Times has defied all logic by not rating two-time World Cup-winning captain Richie McCaw among the top rugby captains.

Jones has long described his often bizarre comments as baiting New Zealanders. He's not the first 'Fleet Streeter' to have done this.

Kiwis had long been used to the verbal fisticuffs since their own T.P. McLean and Welshman J.B.G Thomas regularly lobbed verbal hand grenades at each other in their post-tour books, aimed at achieving the same readership appeal that Jones has since pursued.

The predictability of it all has parallels with the annual race to decry the haka whenever an All Black team is due to tour Britain, and especially England, and the erroneous claims that All Black strength is entirely dependent on an annual hoovering of talent through the Pacific Islands.

That fails to remember that England especially is not averse to claiming Pacific players when it suits, although Britain has some form in this regard having encouraged the transference of the best minds of New Zealand for more than 100 years, and Britain's other former colonies through the Rhodes Scholarship scheme, to boost its intelligence factor. Ironically, if rugby had not tied McCaw to New Zealand he may well have been a Rhodes Scholar.

But all that aside, the inadequacy of Jones' argument is borne by his discounting of those afore-mentioned two Rugby World Cup wins. The first in New Zealand was achieved under McCaw while he played the playoff games on one foot, as an effective example of inspiration to teammates as possible, while the second in England was a celebration of one of the great eras of the game in what was the finest of all Rugby World Cup finals.

What adds strength to McCaw's position among the leaders of repute is the way he picked up his captaincy skills from the very pits of despair as a result of the Cardiff debacle in the Rugby World Cup quarterfinal loss to France in 2007.

To move from that low to the high of 2011, with a side required to play the final with its fourth choice first five-eighths, speaks volumes to McCaw's leadership.

There is a pretty hefty list of evidence in McCaw's favour including the fact that in 110 Tests as captain his side only lost 10 times and in his 148-Test career he enjoyed a winning percentage of 88.5 percent.

Apart from any other consideration, the fact is that in a time when flankers were the victims of multiple law changes, McCaw remained the most consistent of performers in his position while also leading his side.

To ignore those factors in considering the top contenders as leading captains says more about Jones than it does about McCaw. As Donald Trump might tweet: 'Sad'.

To remember how New Zealanders felt about McCaw's contribution to one of the greatest of all rugby eras, 10 years as No1 side in the world of which he led for five years, watch the crowd reaction when he left the field after his last home Test at Eden Park in 2015. And Justin Marshall's words sum it all up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuLbW6etzBA

McIlvanney's parting shot highlights lack of 'meaningful access'

An interesting comment by esteemed British sports columnist Hugh McIlvanney, in his last weekly column for The Sunday Times.

 

"Of all the changes that have transformed my trade since I arrived in Fleet Street half a century ago, obviously the most revolutionising has been the explosion of technology. But of no less interest to me is the shrinkage of meaningful access. It is, of course, particularly conspicuous in football and applies to managers as well as players.

"At World Cup finals, it was once natural to walk into the hotel of, say, the great Dutch team of the 1970s and find such as Johan Cruyff or Johan Neeskens ready to talk frankly and at length, or to spend half a day with Helmut Schoen when he was in charge of West Germany, or – with a friend from Rio as facilitator and interpreter – to penetrate the fortress of the Brazil camp and have one-to-one exchanges with Pele or Gerson. Now, even for reporters covering England, the organised press conference appears to be the standard means of communication.

"No doubt the Scottish connection helped [McIlvanney] to secure educational sessions with Sir Matt Busby, Bill Shankly, Jock Stein and Sir Alex Ferguson (insomnia helped with the mighty Stein, who often wanted to talk through most of the night while drinking endless pots of tea). But that privileged access is firmly associated in my mind with the atmosphere and ethos of those days, a time when the links between journalists writing about sport and the subjects of their pieces were more relaxed and more real.

"It was all a far cry from having to create a story out of some player's brief babblings on Twitter. Technology has delivered many a boon to the working reporter but in sport, especially, there are penalties. The demand for instant information and comment for the internet in addition to the copy transmitted to the newspaper must eat into the opportunities for the ferreting around that I always found productive in the immediate aftermath of an event."

There's more, much more in the wisdom of such an outstanding columnist but take out football and replace with rugby or cricket in New Zealand and you understand there is nothing different in what has been said.

There was a time when mutual respect established between a sportsman and a writer resulted in some superb information that could be passed on to readers – something that made readers the better for having read something about someone who held their interest.

Respect, hard-earned as a result of diligence to the journalism craft, has been replaced by tolerance from sportspeople – tolerance only because payment as a professional sportsman demands that players put themselves in front of the media for the shortest period of time to answer obvious questions but which in the fullness of time leave the reader little better off.

The public are being short-changed, even if many do not realise it. Sportspeople, even though they may not understand it, are diminishing their own legacy.

The hope has to be that the situation is not irreversible, and that somewhere in the digital revolution there will be a chance for genuine interest to replace the click bait. But it could be a long wait.