All Blacks skipper Richie McCaw pays tribute to Jonah Lomu before announcing

New Zealand’s head coach Steve Hansen paid tribute to Richie McCaw after the All Blacks captain announced his retirement from rugby in Wellington yesterday.

He is the only captain to have led a side to two World Cup victories – with back-to-back titles in 2011 and 2015 – and he has been voted the IRB’s player of the year a record three times, in 2006, 2009 and 2010.

“But I’m going to be hanging up my boots”.

“I guess I made it no secret at the start of the year that this was probable (that he might retire)”.

“I knew [I was retiring] after that final whistle at Twickenham and after I took the jersey off was probably the most emotional I got”. “Here’s to new adventures”, he added.

McCaw – the most capped Test player in history with 148 games – will hang up the boots effective immediately and will now focus on working to become a commercial helicopter pilot.

The 40-year-old star, who was diagnosed with a rare kidney disease, nephrotic syndrome, in 1996, died in his home town of Auckland, New Zealand.

One of my favourite stories of Jonah was the night before a game I used to list the two teams, and I said in a team meeting “there’s nobody I’d swap man for man”.

“Any time my thoughts went past it, I thought “nah, that wasn’t going to help me”, he told RNZ.

“He’s the greatest skipper and greatest player the All Blacks and maybe the world has had”, said Hansen.

When asked how he would fill his days now without the sport, he said: “I am heavily involved in the Christchurch Helicopters company, they are great people and I’m excited about the opportunities there”.

“Sitting here today, the body would say, ‘you could still play, ‘ so that means that I think I’ve got the timing right”.

“They kept running past, I looked behind me and there was Jonah”.

“Richie has been the most influential player of his generation, if not of all time”, he said.

He was not named last month in the Canterbury Super Rugby squad for 2016, but New Zealand Rugby (NZR) and the Crusaders said there was space for him if he chose to play on. And had it gone the way of us getting beaten I wanted to make sure I did it right as the All Black captain; that I fronted as you would expect and not really sort of have a foot out the door.