Dan Carter hangs up his boots as a study in sporting greatness

[Celerity]

Best of all time’ discussions are a futile pursuit but no player has greater claim to such a title than the All Blacks legend

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/feb/20/rugby-dan-carter-sporting-greatness-all-blacks



In any sport, debates about the greatest of all time are almost constant and, for that reason alone, impossibly tedious – the more so in this age of incontinent social media. Such posturing is pointless. Then there is a sport like rugby. Even more pointless. How can you compare winger with prop, lock with scrum-half? How can you compare a relatively brief professional era with the long century or so of amateurism that preceded it?

Finally, there is the dread of being asked to write a tribute to some retiring superstar. How to pay sufficient tribute without embarrassing subject and self with that “greatest of all time” chestnut? No such problems with this one. Dan Carter has announced his retirement and so the man hailed by many at the tender age of 23 as the greatest they had seen, and who kept on getting greater, has left the stage at the age of 38.

How does one measure greatness? Well, here are a few ways. Two World Cups and nine championships with the All Blacks, titles with every first-class club (five) he has played for, 112 caps, most points in international rugby (1,598 – the next best being Jonny Wilkinson, 352 points behind), most points in Super Rugby (1,708 – in that instance 259 points ahead of the next best), 355 first-class matches, 4,292 first-class points … It all starts to become meaningless after a while.

More than the numbers, there is the player. Greatness may be a subjective conceit but what we surely can say without fear of dissent is that Carter was the most complete rugby player of all – and that is a hell of a thing in such a multi-faceted sport. He might have struggled to play in the front row (mind you, give him a while to work on his neck muscles …) and may have required lifting against the tallest in the lineout, but otherwise there was not a skill a player could need of which he was not a master. Pace, power, kicking, passing, tackling, vision, nerve, consistency … even the dreaded ability to get over the ball at the breakdown is one he performed at will.

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