Wellington: It was at the Westpac Stadium in Wellington that in 2005 Dan Carter gave one of the great fly-half displays, destroying the British and Irish Lions by scoring 33 points in New Zealand’s thumping 48-18 victory and rather eclipsing his opposite number, the darling of England’s 2003 Rugby World Cup triumph, Jonny Wilkinson.
“The Lions were blown away by a Black tide of rugby superlatives, bedrocked on a sublime contribution from Daniel Carter,” purred my esteemed predecessor at The Sunday Telegraph, Paul Ackford.
“He virtually defeated the Lions on his tod. Jonny who? Carter is now the new superstar of the global game, beyond any question.” Those at the ‘Cake Tin’ that night could never have imagined that a sporting team from these shores could ever be so humiliated again in that stadium.
Then stepped forward England’s cricketers last week with a performance of quite staggering ineptitude, much, much worse than a six-wicket defeat there in 2008. Tim Southee was the chief beneficiary with his seven-wicket haul, but it was the home side’s captain, Brendon McCullum, with his aggressive captaincy and devastating batting (77 off just 25 balls), who drew just as many plaudits. There is talk, and it is not idle, that New Zealand could even win the World Cup with McCullum at the helm.
The beginning
While McCullum’s star keeps rising, so Carter’s seems to be fading. Why the comparison? It is not about the opinion I expressed recently in this column on the relative merits of the CWC and the Rugby World Cup (the latter is much more important), but rather it is about the manner in which the careers of Carter and McCullum have unfolded, and, more importantly, how they began.
Things could have been so different. It is now fairly well known that as a fly-half McCullum once kept Carter out of the South Island secondary schools team. “That year, 2000, he was playing some awesome footy, so I spent a fair bit of time on the bench,” Carter has said. “He was a natural sportsman, good hand-eye.”
You will not find too many quotes from McCullum on the subject, though. When New Zealand toured here in 2008 I wanted to speak to him about it but was told that, while it was true, he did not like to talk about it. He felt it was disrespectful to Carter. I liked that. There are so many of those stories, and there is usually a good reason why people do not make it in a particular sport.
McCullum clearly felt that cricket was his better career option, even if he might have needed persuading. For there is a tale (it could easily be apocryphal) of his once scrambling around to borrow a pair of rugby boots, and Sir Richard Hadlee, then New Zealand’s chairman of selectors, apparently advising his friends not to give him any.
Keeping ahead of Carter might have been rather tricky for McCullum. For much of his career Carter could easily have been God’s representative on a rugby field. He was that good. However, is the 32-year-old’s body now failing him as he bids to play in one last RWC before heading to France to play for Racing Metro. He took a six-month sabbatical at the end of 2013 to prolong his career, but it does not appear to be working too well, as he hobbled through a recent Super Rugby match for the Crusaders. Alarm bells have begun to ring. “His body is as secure as the Greek economy. There are kindergarten projects glued together better,” one outspoken Kiwi columnist screeched.
Even former All Black Craig Dowd admitted: “His body is a bit of a liability.” Some England fans might not agree, but it will be a tragedy if Carter does not make the RWC. You want to see the best. Carter has not actually won a RWC. Yes, he was part of the winning squad in 2011, but he was injured long before the final. He played in the 2003 and 2007 competitions when New Zealand were knocked out in the semi-final (he was unused off the bench) and quarter-final (he was injured early on).
It is remarkable that New Zealand have won 90 of the 102 Tests in which Carter has played and yet he has not known success in a RWC final. What price both McCullum and Carter having their World Cup moments this year?
— The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2015
