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'Things can change quickly': Richie McCaw throws support behind Cane and Foster

(Photo by Phil Walter/Getty Images)

Former All Black captain Richie McCaw has thrown his support behind Sam Cane and Ian Foster while recalling the period before the 2011 World Cup as evidence that all is not lost.

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The All Blacks have won three tests this year from seven matches, a historically low return of 42 per cent, but still remain in the hunt for this year’s Rugby Championship title.

The 148-test legend told French publication Midi Olympique that he trusts the All Black captain and head coach ‘a lot’ and said there is still plenty of time left before next year’s event in France.

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“I trust them a lot [Ian Foster and Sam Cane],” McCaw told Midi Olympique.

“The results are what they are today but we are one year away from the World Cup and there is still time.

“There is plenty of time left… In 2010 there were also questions about the coach and players and we finally won afterwards.

“Things can change very quickly”.

Following the shock 2007 quarter-final defeat to France, McCaw’s All Blacks underwent a challenging period midway through the next World Cup cycle.

They were swept in three tests against South Africa in 2009 which led to a heap of pressure on the coaching staff who were retained after the 2007 exit.

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The All Blacks successfully turned things around in time for the 2011 campaign and squeaked past France in the final 8-7 to win the tournament for the first time in 24 years.

“Obviously I want to see the All Blacks win every match but that’s not the case. I hope they learn from their defeats,” he said.

“I also remember that in 2009 we lost three tests and still won the World Cup two years later.

“There will be several favourites, but I have no doubt that we have a team calibrated to win the next World Cup.”

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One of the favourites for next year’s tournament is France, who will be looking to emulate the feats of McCaw’s 2011 side by winning the World Cup at home.

They will face the All Blacks in an anticipated tournament opener that will likely decide the seedings of their pool.

.McCaw is a fan of what France have been able to build around a younger core of players like Antoine Dupont and Romain Ntamack.

He witnessed the 40-25 win over the All Blacks last November but joked that this ‘quality’ French side is not unbeatable.

“I am impressed by the quality of this French team. The opener against the All Blacks will be a hell of a game and I think it will be spectacular,” he said.

“I watched New Zealand-France last November, Antoine Dupont was sensational.

“He manages the team in the right direction. They don’t have very old players but they trust each other, it shows.

“They have the elements to maintain a very high level of speed, many of the players in this generation arrived at the same time, it’s a fun team to watch and believe in.

“I was talking about a lack of confidence in the All Blacks, for the French it is the opposite.

“But they are not unbeatable!”

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J
JW 1 hour ago
‘The problem with this year’s Champions Cup? Too many English clubs’

Like I've said before about your idea (actually it might have been something to do with mine, I can't remember), I like that teams will a small sustainable league focus can gain the reward of more consistent CC involvement. I'd really like the most consistent option available.


Thing is, I think rugby can do better than footballs version. I think for instance I wanted everyone in it to think they can win it, where you're talking about the worst teams not giving up because they are so far off the pace we get really bad scoreline when that and giving up to concentrate on the league is happening together.


So I really like that you could have a way to remedy that, but personally I would want my model to not need that crutch. Some of this is the same problem that football has. I really like the landscape in both the URC and Prem, but Ireland with Leinster specifically, and France, are a problem IMO. In football this has turned CL pool stages in to simply cash cow fixtures for the also ran countries teams who just want to have a Real Madrid or ManC to lose to in their pool for that bumper revenue hit. It's always been a comp that had suffered for real interest until the knockouts as well (they might have changed it in recent years?).


You've got some great principles but I'm not sure it's going to deliver on that hard hitting impact right from the start without the best teams playing in it. I think you might need to think about the most minimal requirement/way/performance, a team needs to execute to stay in the Champions Cup as I was having some thougt about that earlier and had some theory I can't remember. First they could get entry by being a losing quarter finalist in the challenge, then putting all their eggs in the Champions pool play bucket in order to never finish last in their pool, all the while showing the same indifference to their league some show to EPCR rugby now, just to remain in champions. You extrapolate that out and is there ever likely to be more change to the champions cup that the bottom four sides rotate out each year for the 4 challenge teams? Are the leagues ever likely to have the sort of 'flux' required to see some variation? Even a good one like Englands.


I'd love to have a table at hand were you can see all the outcomes, and know how likely any of your top 12 teams are going break into Champions rubyg on th back it it are?

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f
fl 4 hours ago
‘The problem with this year’s Champions Cup? Too many English clubs’

"Right, so even if they were the 4 worst teams in Champions Cup, you'd still have them back by default?"

I think (i) this would literally never happen, (ii) it technically couldn't quite happen, given at least 1 team would qualify via the challenge cup, so if the actual worst team in the CC qualified it would have to be because they did really well after being knocked down to the challenge cup.

But the 13th-15th teams could qualify and to be fair I didn't think about this as a possibility. I don't think a team should be able to qualify via the Champions Cup if they finish last in their group.


Overall though I like my idea best because my thinking is, each league should get a few qualification spots, and then the rest of the spots should go to the next best teams who have proven an ability to be competitive in the champions cup. The elite French clubs generally make up the bulk of the semi-final spots, but that doesn't (necessarily) mean that the 5th-8th best French clubs would be competitive in a slimmed down champions cup. The CC is always going to be really great competition from the semis onwards, but the issue is that there are some pretty poor showings in the earlier rounds. Reducing the number of teams would help a little bit, but we could improve things further by (i) ensuring that the on-paper "worst" teams in the competition have a track record of performing well in the CC, and (ii) by incentivising teams to prioritise the competition. Teams that have a chance to win the whole thing will always be incentivised to do that, but my system would incentivise teams with no chance of making the final to at least try to win a few group stage matches.


"I'm afraid to say"

Its christmas time; there's no need to be afraid!

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