Goodbye to Rugby's Captain Predictable

For what seemed like the first time ever, his voice was wavering with emotion. His words weren't making any sense.

It didn't matter: everyone in the rugby world knew exactly what All Blacks captain Richie McCaw—maybe one of the greatest to ever play the sport —was saying at his press conference in Wellington last Thursday.

"I guess, you know, it's, ah, this announcement of, ah, that, well, the reality is I'm going to be hanging up my boots, at the end of my rugby days," he said.

Behind McCaw—of course—was a huge black sponsors' panel adorned with AIG, Adidas and All Blacks logos, as well as the @allblacks Twitter handle. In front of him were dozens of Kiwi media; hardly a scene rare to McCaw's career. The Great All Black Number Seven continued his address.

"Um, so that's why I wanted to, ah, let people to know that, ah, my last game for the All Blacks, and as a professional rugby player, was the World Cup final, a couple of weeks ago.

"And, um. So yea, ah, the end of something that has been a big part of my life."

Even if you don't like rugby and the near-overwhelming way it attempts to flood every aspect of the Kiwi psyche, McCaw has been a big part of New Zealand life. We now live in a world where he know longer plays rugby.

His last game might have only been three weeks before last week's presser, but McCaw's deeds on the world's international rugby stage have been hyperbolically large for years.

The credit is richly deserved. It is undeniable the influence McCaw—who played a record 148 tests—has had on the sport over the last decade. As an open-side flanker, he was a colossus at the breakdown; pushing the very letter of the law, but always finding a way to escape the referee's ire.

Under his leadership, the All Blacks have gone from perennial World Cup chokers to a ruthless machine that play rugby hard, fast and graceful—collecting two world titles along the way.

Off the field, the bloke simply wouldn't put a foot wrong. From its roots as an Antipodean pioneer nation through to today, New Zealand society has long prized the laconic. In McCaw, we have a hero humble to the point of embarrassment; a Protestant wet dream of hard work paying off.

In terms of professional sport, having a figurehead like McCaw makes sponsors froth at the mouth. He simply will not let you down. He'll read the lines perfectly at the sponsor's luncheon, and smile for the cameras.

It'll all be a bit cardboard, but who cares, right? People will fawn. Take Prime Minister John Key—his antics around McCaw in post-test match locker rooms are embarrassing.

Thanks to his long professional rugby career, massive endorsement deals, rugby union contract and shrewd investments—he is said to own significant shares in a number of New Zealand's main age-care facilities—McCaw is set for a comfortable life post-rugby.

Life ahead in the helicopter cockpit—he plans to be a commercial chopper pilot in Christchurch—will just be a bit of a lark mostly for the now-well-off country boy who seems to enjoy the simple things in life.

Good on him, aye. It's all so glorious, and well deserved. All so predictable. Safe. Boring.

That's not saying every athlete should be a wild Kenny Powers-style flame-out. We just want some emotion. A little irrationality from time to time. A angry rant at the referee. A few too many beers at a sponsor's luncheon. That makes athletes mere flawed mortals, like us. It makes them real.

Jonah Lomu, who died only a day before McCaw's retirement, was real. He wasn't perfect as a rugby player. On attack unstoppable; on defence, shaky. Off the paddock, marriages broke down, and money was often an issue. Jonah would play the endorsement game too—but he always felt close; like he was one of us.

To that end, McCaw—who, at his press conference, asked for a minute's silence to observe Jonah's death—has always felt unattainable. Never someone you could reach out and touch like Jonah. McCaw just never cocks up, or fluffs a line. No bad investments; a safe, secure future ahead of him.

Which is why, to many of us, he's seemed a bit like a rugby robot built for the media-managed corporate overtures of the modern professional game; a loyal company man.

Think of Sonny Bill Williams' selfless act of giving away his winner's medal after the World Cup final; a glorious moment that every Kiwi should be proud of, but has been criticized enormously back in NZ. Would McCaw do that? No way. He's knows the shit storm that could drop in.

There's no way his retirement would ever happen as he wiped away tears in the press conference after the All Blacks smashed the Wallabies in the World Cup final; its natural end-point.

It was always going to be done at New Zealand Rugby HQ, with the media watching on, and the logos of the big sponsors in the background. The AIG deal is worth around $15 million a year to New Zealand Rugby after all, while the Adidas one nets it up to $28 million every season, after all. Loyal to the firm, until to the end. Firm handshakes all round.

"He's an ordinary every-day bloke," All Blacks coach Steve Hansen once said, of his McCaw.

"Bright as hell, but a bit boring at times."

Boring, safe people can still be legends. It's just that those who aren't mean even more to us.

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