NZ captain Sam Cane opens up on Ireland star's brutal sledge
REACTION: All Blacks captain Sam Cane has revealed what he thought about being sledged by Ireland No.6 Peter O’Mahony on the goal line during the second Test in Dunedin.
Munster hard man O’Mahony was having a blustering performance over the All Blacks and reserved some choice words for the All Black captain when it looked like Ireland had the game all but sealed with a comfortable lead.
Both forward packs became entangled with five minutes remaining where O’Mahony had the chance to spray Cane with a sledge, calling him a “sh*t Richie McCaw” after asking him “who do you think you are?”.
Pressed by media after training on Tuesday about the incident, Cane said he enjoyed the banter and didn’t mind getting involved in that kind of stuff on the field.
“It’s just good rugby banter,” Cane responded.
“It’s all part of the game, I don’t mind it. It’s good stuff.”
Following the 12-23 loss to Ireland, New Zealand slipped to fourth in World Rugby’s rankings which is the lowest they have ever been.
France and Ireland jumped in the rankings to first and second, while South Africa slipped to third following their defeat to Wales.
The All Blacks captain said that the slide in the rankings has not been a focus but the longer-term goal of the team is to get back to No.1 in the world.
“If I’m honest, we haven’t paid too much attention to that,” Cane said.
“We’ve got enough on our hands, digesting what happened in the weekend, and focusing on the game this weekend to worry about.
“Things like world rankings and that kind of stuff takes care of itself when we are playing well. That’s where all our energy is on.
“I don’t know, I don’t even understand how the rankings work exactly myself, it’s certainly sort of a goal of ours to make sure we get back to world number one but we realise the process is performing consistently every week.
“At the moment we haven’t been doing that well enough.”
The All Blacks are expecting the pressure of their series decider to mirror that of a World Cup knockout game which will hold valuable experience for the younger members of the squad going forward.
“The situation is not what we wanted it to be, but now we look at it and embrace it,” Cane said.
“It’s a good challenge for us, it’s do-or-die, it’s just like World Cup stuff and we are looking forward to it.”
@RugbyPass
