James Mortimer 16.Sep.2012Getty Images
The visitors turned up to play, hitting the All Blacks hard in the forward exchanges, and while Hansen said the entire squad had been through a war, it was the team’s openside flanker who looked worse for wear.
"Richie's probably the sorest,” Hansen said.
“He has a pretty sore neck. He got a stinger near the end of the game and a hematoma in his leg, but everyone's expected to be available to get on the plane next Saturday so that's great.”
"There's a lot of people who are sore because they've just come out of a physical encounter, but he's (McCaw) probably the sorest and it probably reflects all the work he did. He had a massive test match."
All Blacks first five-eighth Dan Carter, who was a late withdrawal last week, is still nursing his calf injury, and Hansen said that monitoring the injury would determine the final makeup of the squad.
The World Champions could have Beauden Barrett come into the squad as cover if Carter makes the trip to Argentina and South Africa, but with Aaron Cruden already in the group, this would come at the expense of a forward.
Hansen said that the world record point’s scorer in test match and Investec Super Rugby still wasn’t fit to play.
"He's (Carter) not running full noise yet,” he said.
“The medical staff think he will be, but we'll have to wait and see. We'll probably make a decision late in the week, probably Friday.
"That's (having Barrett in the touring party) an option we've got, but we've got five props as well, so we might leave one of them at home and we have an extra loose forward too, so we could leave one of them home."
