Richie McCaw ... cute, but a cheat?

All Blacks captain Richie McCaw is creating discussion in the lead up to Saturday's test match against Australia.

Just what is he up to?

My observations of Richie's play is that he comes in at the breakdown from off-side a lot. The All Blacks' assistant coach Steve Hansen is quoted in rugbyheaven.smh.com.au as describing the debate as "nonsense". That "a lot of the time he's forcing them (the opposition) to come from the side to remove him, so we should be getting the penalty. He's that quick, he'll make a tackle and get to his feet. Sometimes it's an optical illusion."

I'm not so sure. It's a lot of optical illusions .... it seems to happen in every game. Is he getting away with it because he's the captain? Or because he's in with the refs? Or because he's cute?!

Off-side is a tricky rule to police in rugby as the action is fast and the ref's eyes can't be on every player at every stage of the game. 'Off-side ref!' is a common cry from disgruntled spectators watching a match.

It remains to be seen if Richie is simply 'that quick' or he's sneaky enough to take advantage of the chaos after the scrum breaks down or a maul has scrambled possession of the ball. There are distinct rules about from which direction a player may enter the break-down and coming in from the wrong direction results in a penalty.

And successful penalty kicks equal 3 points for the other side (i.e. us!).

Let's hope the refs are onto it on Saturday .... we need every point we can get :-)