Do we like Richie McCaw?
Our score: 7 out of 10. No harmful words or acts found and some solid good on record, but little public comment on the issues that matter to us, so we stop short of the top end.
Richie McCaw is the All Blacks great who hung up the boots and got on with a very Kiwi second act. He told one interviewer he saw himself as “an ordinary Kiwi kid who managed to live my dream.” That line is pretty much the whole McCaw brand: low drama, no swagger.
After rugby he trained as a commercial helicopter pilot, and it wasn't a vanity project. He told the Telegraph that flying let him “learn” and get “a means of getting away from the bubble” of fame. He also holds stakes in several businesses, including aged-care properties.
The best story is from 2016, when a big earthquake hit near Kaikoura. McCaw flew response teams in and did aerial reconnaissance, with Fire Service crews checking landslips to make sure everyone was accounted for. That's a retired sporting megastar doing a hard, useful job for his community, not a photo op.
On the harm test, we went looking for the usual red flags (anti-LGBTQ+ campaigning, conspiracy slides, culture-war grift, dodgy co-stars) and found none in his own words or acts. Honestly, he just doesn't comment much on that stuff, so the pass is on a clean but quiet record. We also found no court outcomes against him, and the old on-field stoushes were rugby disciplinary matters, not anything about how he treats people.
The nearest he gets to controversy is rugby politics. He spent a decade on the players' association and, in 2021, said the private equity Silver Lake deal “scares” him, urging people not to dismiss an alternative offer just because it came from the other side. A year later company records showed him as one of six directors of NZ Rugby's new commercial entity, so where you land depends on whether you read that as sensible engagement or a bit of a U-turn.
On recent news, nothing confirmed turned up for 2026. There were reports of a mentoring role around the All Blacks ahead of the 2027 World Cup, but we couldn't verify them in a source we opened, so we're not treating them as fact.