McCaw: what happens on the field stays there, you move on

RICHIE McCAW has history with Ireland. Lots of it.

Nine years have elapsed since he won his first cap as an All Black at Lansdowne Road and he will be expected to earn his 94th on Saturday, a number that will edge him one ahead of Seán Fitzpatrick’s long-standing national record.

It will also be his tenth appearance against the Irish and, though he has finished in the black after every transaction, his most recent memories of the men in green was coloured by Jamie Heaslip’s costly rush of blood to the head in New Plymouth last June. McCaw has infuriated hundreds of opponents with his ability to skirt the borders of legality at the breakdown but few have reacted with such fury as the Irish number eight whose use of the knee earned him a red card.