Dan’s my man
Reason feels the love for Carter
Crusaders fans will be throwing themselves under the hooves of their horses after missing the playoffs. It was all made so much worse by the sight of Mr Smooth guiding their team over the previous two weeks. Dan Carter is back, playing where he should have been all along, at No 10.
Carter didn’t have enough time to save the Crusaders from elimination, but he may just be able to bend time and achieve what he expected to do four years ago. Win a World Cup. Just in case we had forgotten, Carter proved yet again what makes him the best first-five of his generation, and one of the greatest ever.
That latter assessment would be indisputable if he could defy both age and history and help the All Blacks win a World Cup overseas for the first time. Carter turned 33 a few months ago and nobody that age has come close to winning a World Cup in the No 10 jersey.
The oldest guy to even play in a final was Stephen Larkham, aged 29, when Australia lost in extra time to England in 2003. The two oldest winners, Michael Lynagh and Butch James, were 28. Of the New Zealand number 10s to play in a World Cup final, Grant Fox was 25 in 1987, Andrew Mehrtens was 22 in 1995 and Aaron Cruden was also 22 in 2011.
The people who deny the significance of such numbers tend to make atrocious gamblers. So there is no use pretending that time doesn’t count against Carter. I will be very surprised if he makes it to Twickenham on October 31, but there are still numerous compelling reasons why Steve Hansen should make every effort to get him there.
In just a couple of weeks Carter has shown that he is still the best reader of a game of the active New Zealand 10s. The only guy who comes close is Aaron Cruden and he is injured. It was a joy to watch Carter lob the ball into the space, whether by foot or hand, that the defence had just vacated.
There were many examples in the games against the Hurricanes and the Blues, but perhaps the best was when Matt Proctor, the Canes’ replacement right wing, was lying injured. Carter stabbed a cross kick into the space. Ma’a Nonu valiantly tried to cover for his stricken team-mate, went to shoulder charge Nemani Nadolo, and hopelessly failed the audition as a standby winger.
Carter, a big admirer of Jonny Wilkinson, once said to me: ‘‘He read the game outstandingly well. If a wide defender had pushed up, you knew that Jonny would kick into the hole. If the midfield was out of line, then Jonny would hit the pass to expose it. If you started to drift off him, then Jonny would run at the space.’’
The same could be said of Carter. Goodness, is he happy to be back at 10. There is a joy back in his rugby which we have not seen for a while. Interviewed at halftime of the Hurricanes game, he could not get the smile off his face. ‘‘Quite enjoying it, good fun,’’ did not come close to measuring the width of that grin. And, by the way, Todd, ‘‘I thought we controlled territory quite well’’.
Carter also controls the pass better than any other 10 in New Zealand. The weight of pass is the thing that separates Carter. The ball is always out in front, always at the right height, but rarely flung. This is perhaps the biggest improvement Beauden Barrett could make in his game. He has the hands. When he is middle man, Barrett is a lovely taker and giver of the pass.
But when he is the distributor, Barrett is obsessed with spin and fling. Three times in the second half of the match against the Highlanders, Barrett exposed the men outside him to huge hits. Conrad Smith copped one, TJ Perenara another and James Marshall the third. When Barrett drops deep, his pass is easily read. As worryingly, when Barrett stands flatter, he is prone to give the no-look spin across defenders and is a candidate for the interception.
His big advantage over Carter is that blazing pace. The old maestro has lost a yard and, even when he was recognising front five defenders ahead of him, often only made a half-break. Barrett will hold the defence more because he is such a threat. He is also a wonderful counter attacker.
But those are not the attributes that have tended to define World Cup-winning No 10s. And as the game has got ever more brutal, so has the importance of defence in the inside channel. James and Wilkinson were vital men in 2007 and 2003. Carter is their equal.
It is not just the tackle technique that sets him apart. Carter recognises when he has to rush. He won’t always make the tackle, but he will force the attacker to check. He buys his defence a precious second.
The great news for Hansen is that the Crusaders are out of the playoffs. He can manage Carter’s game time. The odds are, sadly, Carter will still break down, because his body has not coped well with the stress of previous World Cups or other recent big games.
But Carter is still too good to ignore. He looks like a man who wants to do the impossible.