{"id":31585,"date":"2025-09-19T14:12:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T14:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/31585\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T14:12:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T14:12:06","slug":"the-venom-warning-richie-mccaw-shared-before-all-blacks-boks-rematch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/31585\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u2018venom\u2019 warning Richie McCaw shared before All Blacks-Boks rematch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

All signs from the All Blacks<\/a> camp last week suggest the team was braced for a Springboks counterpunch in Wellington, with iconic former flanker Richie McCaw<\/a> noting their prep seemed thorough.<\/p>\n

After downing the world champions in Auckland, the All Blacks, along with the rest of the rugby world, knew Sky Stadium would host a hungry Springbok team just seven days later. What then played out was a historic defeat, but head coach Scott Robertson<\/a> said post-match that it wasn\u2019t due to a lack of edge from the team. The week of preparation had instilled nothing but confidence that his side was up to the challenge.<\/p>\n

That week included guidance from a special guest in McCaw, the man with the most wins in Test history (131). The former All Blacks captain appeared in the team\u2019s docuseries \u2018Behind the Fern\u2019, speaking about the challenge of the second Test against South Africa<\/a> as the team geared up for the Freedom Cup challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the game last week was what you\u2019d expect between South Africa and the All Blacks, pretty brutal, physically,\u201d he said in the show\u2019s latest episode<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the All Blacks coming off a pretty disappointing loss two weeks before against Argentina, there\u2019s a fair bit of motivation. And you could see that in the passion of how they started. It obviously got a bit tight towards the end, but it\u2019s what you expect in those Tests.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think, always a tough thing in sport is when you get yourself up for a game, especially from an All Blacks point of view, is making sure you can get to the same point again this week, because that\u2019s what it will require.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way the All Blacks were feeling before last week\u2019s game is exactly the way that the Springboks will be feeling this week, having come second.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, week to week, it\u2019s different. But you\u2019ve got to make sure you go back to the start and prepare as such, so that you can have the same intensity and put the same venom or desire into what you\u2019re doing. That\u2019s what it\u2019s going to take; the South Africans won\u2019t lie down. It makes it intriguing.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCaw captained the All Blacks to victory in 97 of the 110 games in which he wore the captain\u2019s armband, so he was well-placed to impart knowledge on what consistent success demands.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were a couple of times we played South Africa two weeks in a row, and they were two different weeks. Whatever the scoreboard said or whatever the feeling was after the game, the following week was different, for a whole lot of reasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I guess when there\u2019s a result, win or lose, it certainly influences how you start the week. But the thing is, if you\u2019re going to be a good team, you need to be able to back up performances when you\u2019ve had a good one, to be able to do it again, which is the challenge for the team this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut from what I\u2019ve seen, they\u2019ve dialled into that. So, hopefully, they get the performance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All signs from the All Blacks camp last week suggest the team was braced for a Springboks counterpunch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-31585","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}