“New Zealand had a ‘no dickheads’ policy, but their approach to rugby was ferocious,” O’Mahony wrote.
“I had no problem with that at all. As well as the physical and mental tests, there were always verbal tests.
“They would abuse you all night long. It came with the territory. When you played the All Blacks, this was par for the course.
“So when I told Sam Cane, ‘You’re just a s*** Richie McCaw’, it was me giving something back.”
The verbal barbs O’Mahony had directed at him by All Black rivals over the years included in the dying minutes of Ireland’s 2023 Rugby World Cup quarter-final loss when lock Brodie Retallick yelled at him: “Oi, Peter! Four more years, you f***wit”.
Not only did Cane’s side lose the 2022 test in Dunedin, but the following week his side also lost 32-22 at Westpac Stadium to become the first All Blacks team to lose a test series to Ireland.
In the lead-up to the deciding third test, Cane described the comment as “good rugby banter”.
O’Mahony wrote in All In that while his comment “captured people’s imaginations”, what was overlooked was “how poor a gag it was”.
“It was a bit of craic at the end of a game when the most important fact was that they were going to be the first All Blacks team to lose to us in New Zealand.
“To tell someone they’re a s*** Richie McCaw is to say you’re still a nine out of 10 player. McCaw was one of the best there ever has been, so it wasn’t much of a putdown.”
‘F*** off’: The stinging response when O’Mahony sought Richie McCaw’s jersey
A decade earlier, O’Mahony was a member of the Irish team that travelled to New Zealand upbeat before another three-test series.
He was aged just 22 and the previous year had been named the Rugby Union Players’ Association’s Young Player of the Year.
Ireland went on to lose the series 3-0.
The highlight was the second test, when the All Blacks needed a dropped goal from Dan Carter in the 81st minute to secure a 22-19 win.
A week later came the low point: being on the receiving end of a 60-0 hammering in Hamilton.
O’Mahony confided in All In that it was “one of the worst experiences of my career”, adding he feared being part of the team beaten so badly meant his Irish career could be over just four months after his test debut.
O’Mahony started at No 8, opposing Richie McCaw, who had switched to No 8 for the All Blacks for the test.
After enduring a hammering on the field, he endured more pain after trying to swap jerseys post-match.
“I figured if this was my last Ireland appearance I might as well go into their dressing room and try and swap jerseys with one of the all-time greats,” he wrote in his book.
“Ma’a Nonu, who hadn’t been playing, was in his blazer outside the All Blacks’ dressing room, stopped me going in. ‘He’s doing media, mate,’ he told me, and I sat down and waited outside for McCaw to walk past.
“After a while, I realised he must have gone back into the dressing room through another entrance. I went to go back in, and Nonu stood there like a bouncer with his arms crossed.”
O’Mahony said he was then told, “Not tonight”, by Nonu.
When asked what he meant by that, O’Mahony said, Nonu told him to “f*** off”.
“I was angry, but I wasn’t completely deranged. I was on my own in New Zealand territory, so I went off with my tail between my legs.”
O’Mahony said he later got an apology from one of Nonu’s teammates. But the treatment he received from Nonu still left an ugly taste.
“Kieran Read had witnessed the exchange, and he came up to me afterwards and said, ‘Sorry about that’.
“It’s a huge sign of respect for someone to come in looking for your jersey. If I had seen an Irish player doing what Ma’a Nonu did, I would have ripped his f***ing head off.”
Gatland’s Lions – Beers, pre-match fried food and coach’s ‘anxiety’
O’Mahony had plenty of exposure to New Zealand’s leading players during his 13-year test career.
Between 2012 and 2025, he played 114 tests for Ireland and one test for the British & Irish Lions.
His test career also saw him play under high-profile New Zealand coaches Joe Schmidt (for Ireland) and Warren Gatland (on the Lions’ 2017 tour of New Zealand).
Gatland named O’Mahony as his captain for the first test against the All Blacks of the 2017 series, a match they lost 30-15.
In All In, O’Mahony wrote that the build-up to the test – which included rigorous twice-daily training sessions – “might have revealed a bit of Gatland’s own anxiety”.
He was dropped for the second test, being told by Gatland: “I don’t have a space for you this weekend.”
He never asked the coach to talk through his reasons, because “I didn’t have any kind of relationship with Gatland”.
O’Mahony said he was further perplexed by the build-up to the third test, where instead of double training sessions the side was encouraged to get on the drink.
“Double sessions before the first test and then a few days on the booze before the last were two extremes I don’t think we needed.”
He also questioned the choice of pre-match meals before Lions tests under Gatland: fish and chips and burgers.
The menu had become regular with the Wales team Gatland coached, having dined out on fast food before breaking a losing streak several seasons earlier.
“So that became Wales’ pre-match meal, and then it became the pre-match meal on the Lions tour,” O’Mahony wrote in All In.
But with the Lions playing twice a week while in New Zealand, it meant two deep-fried pre-match meals weekly.
“It was f***ing madness.”
‘Some people struggled, but I loved it’: The ‘intensity’ of Joe Schmidt
Gatland was the second New Zealand head coach who O’Mahony had played test rugby under.
The first was Schmidt during his 2013-19 tenure as Ireland coach.
While his dealings with Gatland weren’t career highlights, O’Mahony made it clear in All In how much he respected Schmidt; a coach he said “changed me as a professional player … he transformed my understanding of what the game was about and how I could play it”.
“We used to rip up the best teams in the world because Joe would have figured out a way to break them down.”
He said Schmidt brought an “intensity” to the Ireland team he hadn’t experienced before.
But he added that not everyone enjoyed it as much as he did.
The Kiwi coach – who went on to become an All Blacks assistant coach, then Wallabies head coach – ran a tight ship.
O’Mahony said players were under no illusions: they had to “watch your Ps and Qs, and you felt you had to be someone other than yourself”.
In the build-up to Ireland’s disappointing 2019 Rugby World Cup campaign – with O’Mahony saying the preparations were “wrong” – that included Schmidt banning players who hadn’t completed a set amount of training from playing golf in their downtime.
“Some people struggled, but I loved it,” O’Mahony wrote.
“You quickly learned that if you didn’t know something, Joe would f***ing annihilate you.
“If you hadn’t done your homework, you were going to get both barrels from Joe.”
>> All In by Peter O’Mahony is published by Penguin Books with a recommended retail price of $65.
Neil Reid is a Napier-based senior reporter who covers general news, features and sport. He joined the Herald in 2014 and has 34 years of newsroom experience.
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