Peter Bills: Let us laud return of King Carter
Unless you subscribe to the bizarre theory that it's best to wait until someone has retired or died before offering praise for their talents, let us salute one particular, unique performer from the world of rugby union as 2009 comes to an end.
This year began with a dire injury to the game's outstanding out-half. A torn Achilles tendon can be a career-ending blow, such is the gravity of the injury.
Happily, Dan Carter will end 2009 in a blaze of glory. Not only did he recover from the injury that brought to an end his sojourn with Perpignan, but he rediscovered his glorious skills in the toughest ground of all -- the Test match.
Carter is a genius of this rugby age. He is a skilled, delightfully inventive player who brings a sublime craft to the game. Whether it's by running, passing, kicking, tackling, covering or reading the game, he stands apart.
Carter is the Koh-i-Noor diamond of his time. He glitters as no other jewel can. It has been said that whoever owned the Koh-i-Noor ruled the world.
Carter is a wondrous beacon to those who watch this game. And as for owning the world; well, we'll know whether New Zealand achieves that at the 2011 World Cup. Rugby, of course, is a team game but let's put it this way. With Carter, New Zealand stands a very decent chance of ending their 24-year wait for a second World Cup triumph. Without him, they have next to no chance.
In a single performance last month for the All Blacks in France, Carter demolished single-handedly the pathetic pleas of inferior countries like England for law changes, who reason that you cannot play attacking rugby under the present structures. Well, England can't but Carter can.
The All Blacks' five-tries to nil thrashing of France in Marseille was not entirely due to Carter. But he lit the touch paper. His decision-making was perfect, his running clever and his chosen angles of attack judicious. He controlled the game with an (apparently) light hand on the tiller. Yet none could doubt his crucial influence.
When he struggled into the French hospital on crutches back in early February for a critical operation, no one knew if he would ever be the same player again. You don't have to be a New Zealander to celebrate his recovery.
How rugby union needs Carter. In a modern game in which incessant, aimless kicking has threatened to ruin the basic notion of the sport, Carter offers another perspective. Watch the variety of his game when he puts boot to ball. Long kicks downfield, touch kicks, up-and-under kicks, short-chip kicks over a flat defence, little grubber kicks that make the defenders turn and scramble...
Extensive
Aside from the fact he possesses the necessary skills, he has the rugby brain and vision to choose what's best. From his extensive locker, he can select in an instant the best kick for a given situation.
And then there is his running and passing that puts others into space. He can hold a fringe defence with a short dart, tying in enough defenders to make room for those outside him to whom the ball is delivered at the ideal moment. And in defence, when cover is needed, invariably it is Carter who has read the play.
Precious few players possess all these skills. Even through all the years of rugby's history, only a very few in Carter's position have enjoyed such mastery, with Jack Kyle and Mike Gibson uppermost among that small, exclusive group.
Players of this quality have lit up this sport ever since its inception. So, regardless of your nationality, at the end of a disturbing year that featured 'Bloodgate' and other profoundly distasteful acts and trends, enjoy Carter's mercurial skills for what they are.
- Peter Bills
Irish Independent
