Richie McCaw considered standing down as All Blacks captain after their 2007 World Cup failure, before realising it was time to man up.

McCaw becomes the first player to lead his country in 100 Tests when New Zealand face Wales in Cardiff on Saturday.

That figure would have stopped at 23 if he acted on his doubts in the wake of their quarter-final loss to France seven years ago – also at Cardiff.

“I questioned whether I was good enough to do it or the right person to do it,” he said this week, reflecting on a low point of his stellar career.

Confiding with his parents was followed by a period of soul-searching as the fallout from the tournament swirled around him.

Finally came the realisation he would have a lifetime of regret if he walked away from the job.

“You can either man up and get on with it or drift away and remember that experience as one you couldn’t handle,” he told AAP.

“Being the person I am, as soon as I thought like that I thought: ‘There’s no way I’d want to do that’.

“I remember one day I got over it and got on with it.”

McCaw says the despair of the French loss made beating the same nation to lift the world title on home soil four years later considerably sweeter.

Current coach Steve Hansen was the assistant in 2007 and wasn’t surprised to learn of McCaw’s uncertainty.

“There were a lot of us questioning ourselves after ’07 because we had a team that should have won it, but we stuffed it up,” he said.

Hansen says McCaw is a considerably better captain now, something the 33-year-old happily concedes, believing the Cardiff meltdown was the catalyst for growth both on and off the field.

McCaw says he became hungrier to learn about leadership and has never tired of the pressure and commitments that come with one of the highest stations in the land.

“I don’t think you’d carry on doing it if you didn’t want it,” he added.

“You’ve got to want to put yourself under the pressure that comes with it otherwise you wouldn’t last.”

Hansen says the evolution of a player leadership group around McCaw has made the job easier and been a key part of the All Blacks’ success during his nine-year stewardship.

However, he doesn’t want to detract from the achievements of the 136-Test flanker, whose physical deeds and winning legacy are incomparable in rugby.

“He’s grown into probably one of the great leaders of any sports team in the world,” Hansen said.