Brendan Gallagher looks back at the players who shone on the biggest stage

IT WAS close to midnight on a filthy wet Auckland evening outside the plush hotel where the old IRB were holding their awards evening for the World Cup that had ended the night before. This weary journo had hit the wall and was flagging down an elusive taxi when a familiar badly limping figure emerged into the night also desperately looking for transport.
Richie McCaw – for it was he in an unfamiliar tuxedo – had spent the last few months virtually on one leg and, now his mission was accomplished, was visibly in pain...