McCaw’s ‘dumb mistake’

All Blacks captain Richie McCaw was labelled ‘dumb’ by his coach Steve Hansen after being sent to the sin-bin against Argentina.

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All Blacks captain Richie McCaw was labelled ‘dumb’ by his coach Steve Hansen after being sent to the sin-bin against Argentina.

Conrad Smith joined his captain in the sin-bin at the end of the first half as New Zealand trailed 10-9 at Wembley.

‘The two yellow cards today were pretty dumb,’ Hansen said. ‘Speaking to both the boys they know they were dumb and sometimes in the heat of the moment you have a brain explosion. I thought the rest of the discipline was pretty good. But we’ll have a chat about it because we can’t afford to keep playing with 14 men and at one stage only 13.’

The All Blacks’ stuttering first-half display was put down to nerves and ill-discipline by their coach.

‘It was very, very hard. It took a long time to get on top,’ said Hansen.

‘The fact we gave away two yellow cards, both warranted, meant we played for 20 minutes with only 14 players. That makes it a bit tougher. In saying that I thought our players showed a lot of fortitude. We’re on track and we’ll improve.’

McCaw was twice booed when he appeared on the giant screen.

‘I was sitting in the sin bin at the time so I didn’t really have a lot of comeback,’ he said. ‘It was a dumb mistake I made.’ – Daily Mail