October 31 2015: Dan Carter plays like a dream in his final Test match to win New Zealand’s third Rugby World Cup.
When his country needed him, Carter delivered. They may have to redefine the word “legend” in the 2016 edition of the Oxford Dictionary.
June 25, 2005: The British & Irish Lions have been preparing for Dan Carter for the past month.
Clive Woodward has selected back row bruisers from his Class of 2003 World Cup winners to shut the 23-year-old down.
80 minutes later and the Lions have lost 21-3. No one can remember laying a glove on the All Blacks imperious out-half.
One week later and Woodward selects a new back row – Simon Easterby, Lewis Moody and Ryan Jones. Fresh for the fight.
New Zealand win 48-18 and Carter scores 33 points, including two tries. Baked in the Cake Tin.
Dan sits out the third Test. His work here is done.
Although he made his debut in 2003 and featured, as a centre, in that year’s World Cup, Carter did not come of international age until 2004. He started two summer Test wins over England, scored 37 points, and never looked back.
With Canterbury he won national titles while he was a four-time Super Rugby champion with the Crusaders.
If Jonny Wilkinson was world-class and a nerveless goal-kicker, Carter was all that and more. He played at pace with an eye for a gap and an innate knowledge of the shoulders to attack. On Friday, Steve Hansen, his current ABs coach, was asked what made him such a remarkable player.
“He can tackle,” Hansen remarked.
He added: “So, a little fellah from Southbridge has done that [improved the No.10 jersey]. He’s done it in a nice way, he’s a pretty humble bloke.”
Offloading, like just about every Test Kiwi, was second nature and he was a try-scoring threat. In his first 50 tests, he scored 24 tries, including a World Cup hat-trick [2007 vs. Canada].
He won his team big matches and swung losing positions into one more win. That’s all the Kiwis care about – the next game, the next win.
Carter won IRB Player of the Year in 2005 and 2012, and Super Rugby POTY in 2004 and 2006, but he treasures the New Zealand Player of the Year accolades he won in 2004 and 2005. Voted as the most valuable player to his team, by his peers, left him humbled and as close to speechless [first time around] as he can get.
All the while, he was the media darling. Centre of attention in a country that ticks on rugby.
2007 was his nadir. The All Blacks were dumped out of the World Cup after losing 20-18 to France. Not once did Carter drop in the pocket and call the ball on himself for a drop goal. It was not in his, or his team’s, nature but they lived to regret it.
Carter’s previous 44 Test appearances had seen him score just one drop goal. In the 67 games he has played since, he has landed six. Hardly a sea change but a weapon to have in the armoury – one that Ireland regretted he had on a rainy night in Christchurch, three years ago. His drop goal in a pool stage win over the French, at the 2011 World Cup, was pre-meditated and deeply satisfying.
It was a shame, then, that a groin injury sustained on the training paddock cost him his rightful place at the final. New Zealand lifted the Webb Ellis trophy at Eden Park but planning for 2015 began two days later – on the same day as the victory parade up Queen Street.
The emergence of Aaron Cruden meant Carter, like his captain Richie McCaw, could take a couple of sabbaticals.
While he joined Perpignan for 2008/09 and won a Top 14 title, this time around he got away from the game. When he did return, it was a run out or two with his old club side Southbridge.
Over 280 games in 15 seasons has seen Carter lose some of his zip but, as anyone who witnessed the Millennium Stadium slaughtering of France will attest, he remains a potent member of the world’s best backline.
He starts against the Wallabies for the 27th time [19 wins, one draw, six defeats so far]. It will be the final time we see him in an All Blacks jersey before he heads to Paris and starts earning €1m a year.
Carter does not need a World Cup medal hanging around his neck to confirm his status as one of the all-time greats.
No-one could tell him that, though.
The final 19 points of his Test career were pure Carter – nerveless, vital and a smack-down to a team that dared to challenge.
The fact that he landed a 32-metre drop goal to virtually settle the final spoke volumes of a man that finished with every single weapon at his disposal.
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