World Champions New Zealand will have to battle all the way against Ireland on Sunday if the All Blacks are to become the first team in the professional era to win all their Test matches in a calendar year, captain Richie McCaw said on Saturday.
The 32-year-old flanker, who skippered the All Blacks to their 2011 World Cup title on home soil with an 8-7 victory over France, claimed, though, that the priority was not making it 14 wins from 14 Tests but more a good performance.
No international team in the professional era has enjoyed a perfect calendar year, with the All Blacks side led by Wayne Shelford — that won all seven of their Tests in 1989 — the last major nation to achieve the feat when rugby union was still an amateur sport.
However, New Zealand themselves came close to it again when they won 11 games and drew one under John Hart in 1997.
McCaw, who has a special attachment with Lansdowne Road as he made his debut there in 2001, said the Irish despite not having beaten them before and coming off a disappointing 32-15 humbling by Australia would be fired up and capable of giving them a good tussle.
Ireland prop Cian Healy had done his best already to stir up emotions as he said he refused to call them the All Blacks referring instead to New Zealand and while he had been in awe of the haka growing up he hated fronting up to it as a player.
McCaw, though, laughed those remarks off but said it was an indication of the Irish getting fired up for the game.
“They’re getting excited about the game and turning round last Saturday’s performance,” McCaw told reporters.
“They will come out fired up. It has never been easy here and will have a real battle to win here as always.”
McCaw, three times the International Rugby Board world player of the year, said the atmosphere in the camp was very different to that of last year when they went into their final match against England bidding to round off their year with a perfect wins record — only to lose.
“Last year we were struggling with fatigue and also physically, some were thinking only of the flight home,” he said.
“This year we are not struggling, we are relatively fresh, I missed part of the season so I feel like I have only started the campaign, and raring to go.”
