New Zealand
'Fat cheque didn't spin my wheels,' McCaw says of rugby motivation
ESPN Staff
November 19, 2015
Richie McCaw calls time

Richie McCaw could have named his own price had he wanted to play in Europe or Japan - either during a sabbatical or now as he walks into the rugby sunset.

He would have had suitors queueing up, no matter how much the cost, befitting his status as the two-time Rugby World Cup-winning New Zealand captain his All Blacks coach, Steve Hansen, has described as "the greatest All Black of all time ... the greatest captain we have ever had and possibly the greatest player to have ever played the game in the modern era".

But McCaw was not tempted.

"I really had no desire to [play overseas]," McCaw said as he announced his retirement from rugby after 145 Super Rugby matches for the Crusaders and 148 Tests for New Zealand.

New Zealand
Richie McCaw bowed out on the highest note.© David Rogers/Getty Images

"I always said that if I felt like I could play professional rugby then I wanted to play it here because I loved playing here.

'McCaw an icon of the sport'
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"Everyone is motivated a little bit differently, but to go and play rugby just because you want to earn a fat cheque, it really didn't spin my wheels.

"If I want to go over to the south of France I'll find another reason to."

McCaw won two Rugby World Cups, seven Rugby Championships and 10 Bledisloe Cup series in compiling his 131-victory Test career with the All Blacks, and he said "of course you hear about big contracts thrown around and you do think 'oh, I wonder what [I would get]', but I didn't even want to go down that path and be influenced for the wrong reasons".

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

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