Richie McCaw Absolutely Hated and Had Zero Respect For One Player

podcast. “My mistake was not admitting it. I later apologised to Richie.”

Across 148 test matches, McCaw guided New Zealand to two Rugby World Cup titles, led them through a record-breaking era of dominance, and cemented himself as perhaps the most respected (and feared) competitor to ever lace up a pair of boots.

But greatness has a shadow. McCaw’s relentless pursuit of perfection — his tireless work at the breakdown, his refusal to yield an inch — invited both admiration and animosity. For over a decade, opponents tried everything to stop him. Sometimes, that line was crossed.

These are the flashpoints that shaped McCaw’s myth — the clashes that tested his resilience and revealed just how hard the world’s toughest flanker really was.

Before the high-profile collisions and disciplinary headlines, there were the pure rugby rivalries. One of the earliest came with Wallabies playmaker Stephen Larkham.

Calm, clinical, and clever, Larkham was the opposite of McCaw’s thunderous intensity, but their encounters in the early 2000s were fierce.

Each man embodied his nation’s ethos — the cerebral Wallaby versus the indomitable All Black. It was the kind of clash that forged respect, even if neither would admit it at the time.

In 2006, Australia’s powerhouse winger Lote Tuqiri lit up the Tri-Nations for all the wrong reasons. During a bruising Bledisloe battle, Tuqiri lifted McCaw and drove him head-first into the turf — a dangerous spear tackle that somehow escaped an on-field red card.

Richie McCaw dusted himself off, as he always did, and finished the match. But the footage told another story. Tuqiri was later banned for five weeks, and the incident reignited debate about player safety and inconsistent officiating.

It also reinforced McCaw’s near-mythical durability. “Captain Courageous” had once again taken a hit that might have ended another man’s night — and simply carried on leading.

If McCaw was rugby’s ultimate professional, Quade Cooper was his mirror opposite — unpredictable, mercurial, and mischievous. Their rivalry reached boiling point in 2011 during a Bledisloe Cup test in Brisbane, when Cooper appeared to knee McCaw in the head at a ruck.

He was cited but cleared, to the fury of Kiwi fans. By the time the Rugby World Cup rolled into New Zealand later that year, Cooper had become public enemy number one. Every touch of the ball drew a chorus of boos from Eden Park to Wellington.

Years later, Cooper finally admitted the act was deliberate. “Yeah, it was on purpose,” he confessed on The Ice Project

McCaw never indulged in the drama — at least publicly. He just kept winning. But for years, that single moment defined one of rugby’s fiercest modern rivalries.

By 2012, McCaw’s aura had grown so large that opponents often targeted him as a statement. In Dunedin’s Forsyth Barr Stadium, South African prop Dean Greyling took that idea too literally.

Coming off the bench for the Springboks, Greyling charged into a ruck and smashed his forearm into McCaw’s face — an act as reckless as it was blatant. The referee produced only a yellow card, prompting outrage from fans and pundits alike. Many argued it should have been a straight red.

Greyling later received a two-week suspension, while McCaw — battered but unbroken — got up, rallied his side, and led the All Blacks to another win. It was vintage McCaw: take the hit, get on with the job, and let the scoreboard do the talking.