Winning percentage: How ABs captains rate
As an All Blacks captaincy apprentice, Sam Cane fashioned the right kind of winning percentage to seal his graduation to the top job.
It sounds impressive: 100 per cent, three wins from three tests at the helm, including a tense
20-16 scrape in Argentina last year without Kieran Read and several other frontliners.
It’s also not out of the ordinary for a team with such a prolonged level of excellence in international competition. As many as 22 All Blacks – including Cane and their very first test captain Jimmy Duncan against Australia in 1903 – boast perfect winning records according to statistics from the ESPNScrum. com website.
Lock Sam Whitelock, who like Cane deputised for Read against lower tier opponents, also has an unblemished six from six while brother Luke and other recent All Blacks Andrew Hore and Ben Smith went one from one.
Now for Cane the bigger task is to maintain that stellar percentage against the major rivals when international rugby finally resumes, having watched and learned from two of the best in Read and Richie McCaw.
The latter is a compelling pick (within New Zealand at least) as the greatest of them all: two Rugby World Cup wins including the 2011 final with a fractured foot, and 97 wins from 110 tests as skipper between 2004 and 2015.
The percentage of 89.1 places McCaw second on the All Blacks’ all-time list, of those who led for
10 tests or more.
And the winner is? Wayne ‘Buck’ Shelford, one of the toughest to don the black jersey whose unbeaten test captaincy over two years (1988 to 1990) ended with 13 wins and a draw, against the Wallabies in Brisbane. Then he was axed for Gary Whetton, causing an outcry and showing even the best winning record is no guarantee of longevity.
Shelford’s 96.4 per cent win record puts him atop the world list of the major rugby nations, narrowly ahead of England’s
Dave Davies (95.5 per cent, 10 wins and a draw from 1921-23), with McCaw’s 89.1 placing him third.
South Africa’s best on that list is Morne du Plessis from the 1970s (86.7 per cent from 15 tests), and Australia’s frontrunner is
John Eales at 76.4 from 55. Another World Cup winner, England and Lions colossus Martin Johnson, ended with a win percentage of 82 (37 from 45).
Read succeeded McCaw after the 2015 World Cup victory and signed off after last November’s bronze medal victory over Wales with an 84.6 per cent win rate (43 from 52 tests).
Read went 20 tests as captain before he experienced his first loss: the 40-29 shock against Joe Schmidt’s Ireland in Chicago in
2016.
McCaw had a narrow scrape in his first test in charge – a 26-25 victory over Wales in Cardiff in
2004 – and won his first nine as skipper before the 21-20 loss to the Springboks in Rustenberg in September 2006.
Ten All Blacks captains
retired with 80 per cent win rates, headed by Shelford and McCaw.
Next on that list (of those to captain 10 tests or more) was Andy Dalton on 88.2 (15 wins from 17), Reuben Thorne on 87 (20 from 23), McCaw’s predecessor Tana Umaga on 85.7 (18 from 21) then Read on 84.6.
The late Brian Lochore (83.3 per cent) and 1987 World Cupwinning skipper David Kirk (81.8) are next, with Whetton and Anton Oliver both on 80 per cent to round out the top-10.
Of those to captain the All Blacks in 20 tests or more, McCaw, Thorne, Umaga and Read are the top-four, followed by Wilson Whineray (78.3 per cent from 30 tests), Sean Fitzpatrick (77.5 per cent from 51) and Taine Randell (56.8 per cent from 22).
Cane takes the reins aged 28 with the All Blacks’ next test yet to be confirmed, but most likely a Bledisloe Cup amid the mooted trans-Tasman bubble.
Incoming All Blacks coach Ian Foster said he had a gut feeling for some time that Cane was the man for the top job.
‘‘This wasn’t a question about making a decision on one person who could probably do it, it was about which person suited,’’ Foster said.
‘‘Sam has got the respect of the training shed, he trains hard. He walks the talk. He is a straight shooter, he likes to think a lot about the game and think about where players are at.
‘‘And wants real clarity. He can annoy you at times. He comes and asks a lot of questions, he challenges. I think that is exactly what we want out of a captain.’’