‘The greatest All Black we’ve ever had’ – Richie McCaw retires

Retiring All Black skipper Richie McCaw is known by many names to Kiwi rugby fans – “Captain Fantastic”, “The Real McCaw”, “Richie McAwesome” – but team-mates simply call him GOAT: Greatest Of All Time.

Statistics back up the players' assessment – McCaw is rugby's most capped test player, three-time world player of the year and the only captain to win the World Cup twice.

After 15 years at the top, the 34-year-old bowed out on Thursday on an unprecedented 148 test caps – 111 matches as captain – with 131 won, two drawn and just 15 lost.

“I’m going to be hanging up my boots, the end of my rugby days. My last game for the All Blacks and as a professional rugby player was the World Cup final a couple of weeks ago,” McCaw told a news conference on Thursday.

“I sit here today with no regrets over what I have done as a rugby player. I think I played some of my best rugby over those last couple of weeks.”

“He's the greatest All Black we've ever had,” coach Steve Hansen said after McCaw led New Zealand to a dominant 34-17 win over Australia to claim back-to-back world titles at Twickenham last month.