Richie McCaw admits one regret from his All Blacks career

The former All Blacks captain Richie McCaw won 20 of his 26 Tests against South Africa — but never played in the format that starts at Ellis Park on Saturday.

Former All Blacks captain Richie McCaw says the one gap in his 148-Test career is that he never played a full Test series against the Springboks in South Africa. The openside flanker was speaking in Johannesburg ahead of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry, the four-Test series between South Africa and New Zealand that opens at Ellis Park on Saturday 22 August.

“I never had the privilege of coming here and playing a full Test series against the Boks,” McCaw said in conversation with commentator Matthew Pearce at Discovery’s Johannesburg headquarters, in comments reported by Netwerk24. “It would have been nice to have had that privilege.”

The regret is a quirk of the calendar more than of his career. The last time New Zealand toured South Africa in the traditional format was 1996, when John Hart’s side, captained by hooker Sean Fitzpatrick, won the three-Test series 2-1 and were nicknamed the Incomparables for becoming the first All Blacks team to win a series on South African soil. McCaw was 15 years old that August.

By the time he made his Test debut against Ireland in 2001, the Tri Nations had replaced touring with single fixtures, and the structure held through the Rugby Championship years until he retired in 2015. Every Test he played in South Africa was a one-off.

There were plenty of them. McCaw faced the Springboks 26 times and won 20, a 77% record, and captained New Zealand in 110 of his 148 Tests.

His last appearance in the country came at Ellis Park on 25 July 2015, when he scored the winning try inside the closing six minutes of a 27-20 Rugby Championship victory. He has not been back since. Later that year he captained New Zealand past South Africa 20-18 in the World Cup semi-final at Twickenham before lifting the Webb Ellis Cup for a second successive time.

More than a decade on, McCaw said being around a Test environment again had sharpened what he misses about it.

“That anticipation in the week before a Test is what I miss the most,” he said. “Where you turn up on a Monday and start putting in the work to make sure you deliver your best on Saturday.”

Dave Rennie’s All Blacks reach the first Test having beaten the Stormers 38-21 at Cape Town Stadium and the Sharks 54-0 at Hollywoodbets Kings Park, with the Bulls fixture at Loftus Versfeld completing the provincial leg. Kick-off at Ellis Park is 5.10pm local (4.10pm BST).

The series then moves to Cape Town Stadium on 29 August and FNB Stadium on 5 September, before a fourth Test at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore on 12 September — the first Springboks-All Blacks Test staged in the United States.