All Blacks won’t be caught off guard, says McCaw

It took New Zealand 24 agonising years to claim the Webb Ellis Trophy back, so Richie McCaw was quick to admit that it felt slightly surreal to be handing it over to the IRB again last night, just over two years later.

The timing wasn’t the only part of last night’s ceremony at the Aviva Stadium that felt wrong. Such is the form of the All Blacks just now that they will be expecting to have the bauble back in their belonging sooner rather than later.

Their record for this calendar year stands at played 13, won 13 and, with just Sunday’s game against Ireland in Dublin to go, the odds on them being the first international side to go unbeaten for a year in the professional era are beyond short.