{"id":557062,"date":"2025-11-08T10:35:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T10:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/557062\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T10:35:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T10:35:14","slug":"richie-mccaw-unsure-if-hed-be-as-good-playing-in-todays-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/557062\/","title":{"rendered":"Richie McCaw unsure if he\u2019d be as good playing in today\u2019s era"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Universally recognised as one of rugby\u2019s greatest ever players, Richie McCaw<\/a> isn\u2019t sure whether he would have the same impact were he playing in today\u2019s generation.<\/p>\n

The former All Blacks<\/a> captain was asked the question in Chicago last week, and he responded by reflecting on his playing career and the evolution of the game that he had witnessed firsthand.<\/p>\n

The great openside flanker debuted for New Zealand<\/a> in 2001, assuming the captaincy in 2006, and leading his team to the first-ever back-to-back Rugby World Cup<\/a> titles before retiring in 2015. The game evolved significantly in those 15 years, as the mechanisms of professionalism expanded and new strategies emerged.<\/p>\n

In 2025, 10 years on from McCaw\u2019s last game \u2013 the 2015 Rugby World Cup final \u2013 the game is in a new era, and what McCaw sees has him uncertain of how well he would fare.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe game\u2019s certainly changed,\u201d he said. \u201cIt looks way more physical than when I was playing. Maybe it is, maybe it isn\u2019t. I don\u2019t know. It looks like that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI reckon you just adapt. I look at my career, from when I started to when I finished, the game had changed quite a lot. If you don\u2019t adapt, you end up not surviving, so you\u2019ve got to adapt. I\u2019d like to think that you\u2019d adapt.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a bit like if you look at players, maybe going back to the 90s or 80s, there are athletes there who were good in those days, they would have adapted because they\u2019re athletes. If you give them all the same stuff we had, they would\u2019ve had no trouble. I guess that would be the same.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe body types have changed. I even noticed over the years how strong and powerful these guys were \u2013 big, 110 kg guys who were as fast as some of the backs. I was never that.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that\u2019s what I liked about rugby, is that you didn\u2019t necessarily need to tick all of those boxes; you obviously had to work at it. But the athletes now, I don\u2019t know if I would have kept up in that regard. Maybe I would, I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with the on-field evolution, the game has changed off the field. Players are now more accessible than ever on social media, and that comes with its own highs and lows.<\/p>\n

When asked whether he would enjoy playing the game as much nowadays, McCaw answered, \u201cI don\u2019t see why not\u201d, before addressing the many demands of being a professional athlete in the 2020s.<\/p>\n

\u201cTimes are what they are, and you adapt and whatnot. Some of the different things you have to deal with off the field when it comes to social media, I hate doing it, but I do it. It would have been the same; you do what you have to do. I don\u2019t see why it wouldn\u2019t be similar.<\/p>\n

\u201cI talk to some of the players who I played with who were still playing up until recently, and they say the younger guys coming in had a slightly different outlook on things, which is just natural. And maybe there would be a different way of doing things.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Universally recognised as one of rugby\u2019s greatest ever players, Richie McCaw isn\u2019t sure whether he would have the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-557062","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115513637197306141","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}