The 148-test legend might have hung up his boots a decade ago, but the crowd packed into the Arrowtown Community Centre last week hung on his every word as he talked about leadership under pressure.
Chatting with Queenstown realtor and international touch ref Richie Heap, McCaw also showed glimpses of the ruthlessness that made him one of the game’s most feared and targeted players.
Reflecting on the lessons he learned in rugby, particularly as the young captain of an ABs team beaten by France in the 2007 World Cup quarterfinal, he says that experience helped the team win the next two tournaments, but continues to be valuable in his own life.
He believes his team wasn’t prepared for the unique pressures of a World Cup in ’07 and when they got behind on the scoreboard, the "fight or flight" instinct kicked in, and they started losing focus.
In the rancorous post-tournament fallout, coaches and players realised they had to learn how to better deal with adversity — subsequently, they learned to embrace pressure to the point they "craved" to be tested by the opposition.
A team once labelled as chokers started to win tough games consistently.
"Those games you shouldn’t win, you figure out a way of winning. And when you’ve got a team by the throat, you bury them."
McCaw says when you’re at the "pointy end" of any activity in life, there are consequences for making mistakes.
The key is to acknowledge the pressure, and learn techniques for dealing with it — he believes fostering resilience in kids is crucial for the same reasons.
"I think in society, that’s sort of where we’re lacking at the moment.
"If we keep hearing it’s someone else’s fault, we’ll never take responsibility for what we can do."
Looking back on why he followed and trusted certain captains and coaches as a young player, he’d realised it was what they did, rather than what they said.
Leaders needed to set standards, and consistently achieve them.
"What you expect others to do, you need to do yourself."
He believes the same applies to parenting. "If you don’t want your kids to be on the phone, and you’re on it all the time, what message is that sending?"
Asked how he’d dealt with his retirement from rugby at the age of 34, he says he knew he wouldn’t miss playing, but would miss the "anticipation, the nervousness" before he ran on to the field, and the challenge of trying to be better every day.
He’s helped fill that void, in part, by competing in the GODZONE adventure races — with four under his belt, McCaw says he finds the team dynamics and extreme mental challenge "intriguing".
Besides giving him the motivation to keep fit, he gets the same feeling of nerves on the startline he used to get before a test match, he says.
