{"id":14635,"date":"2012-09-14T16:28:15","date_gmt":"2012-09-14T14:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/09\/rugby-all-blacks-skipper-mccaw-prioritises-substance-over-style\/"},"modified":"2012-09-14T16:28:15","modified_gmt":"2012-09-14T14:28:15","slug":"rugby-all-blacks-skipper-mccaw-prioritises-substance-over-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/rugby-all-blacks-skipper-mccaw-prioritises-substance-over-style\/","title":{"rendered":"Rugby-All Blacks skipper McCaw prioritises substance over style"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">Sept 14<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; Despite lifting the World Cup, enjoying<br \/>\na 13-match winning run and on target to claim the inaugural<br \/>\nRugby Championship title, New Zealand captain Richie McCaw found<br \/>\nhimself countering criticism over his side&#8217;s lack of style.<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Three wins from three put the All Blacks on top of the pile<br \/>\nahead of their test against South Africa in Dunedin on Saturday<br \/>\nbut instead of basking in the glory of victories over Australia<br \/>\nand Argentina, McCaw was asked when performances would improve.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>A scrappy opening win over Australia in Sydney was followed<br \/>\nby a 22-0 shutout over the same opponents in Auckland, the first<br \/>\ntime in 50 years the Wallabies had failed to score a point<br \/>\nagainst the All Blacks.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>But the Auckland win could have been by a much bigger margin<br \/>\nhad the All Blacks not squandered a hatful of opportunities and<br \/>\ntheir attacking threat was stifled for long periods by the Pumas<br \/>\npack last week.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Five tries in three matches has been a concern for many but<br \/>\nnot for the experienced McCaw, who has played over 100 tests for<br \/>\nhis country.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re going out there to win, that&#8217;s first and foremost,&#8221;<br \/>\nthe flanker told reporters after the captain&#8217;s run on Friday.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I suppose how we do that is our performance and if it&#8217;s<br \/>\ngood to watch or not, that&#8217;s sort of secondary.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We realise we&#8217;ve got guys with skill and strengths we want<br \/>\nto be able to use. Putting all that aside, we want to improve as<br \/>\na team every week and we&#8217;ve done that in stages but haven&#8217;t put<br \/>\nit together yet.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But you play test matches to win. Some days they&#8217;re going<br \/>\nto be tough and messy and if you&#8217;re good enough to come out on<br \/>\nthe right side, so be it.&#8221;<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sept 14 (Reuters) &#8211; Despite lifting the World Cup, enjoying a 13-match winning run and on target to claim the inaugural Rugby Championship title, New Zealand captain Richie McCaw found himself countering criticism over his side&#8217;s lack of style. Three wins from three put the All Blacks on top of the pile ahead of their [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-14635","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14635\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}