Since his breakthrough season for the Crusaders and All Blacks in 2003, Carter has played a pivotal role in countless Super Rugby and All Black successes. He set multiple records in his international career, finishing as the highest scorer of all time. He was also named IRB Player of the Year three times.
The first time he received the honour was in 2005, helped in no small part by a performance dubbed the 'Perfect 10.' Carter has always been reluctant to talk about his successes. Still, this game he freely admits was his greatest performance. However, at the time he had no idea just how great.
“It was really weird. You're just kind of in the zone, and everything's going well. I was just in that state of mind. I came off the field, and there was a bit more media than normal wanting to talk to me, and they're asking “Do you know how many points you scored? Did you know you broke records?” I didn't know how many points I'd scored. Someone said 33; I thought that's pretty good, I'm happy with that.”
This is typical Carter: the points scoring machine who refuses to keep a tally. At a recent school quiz night, he was stumped by the question 'Dan Carter scored 1598 points during his international career. Has he scored more penalties or conversions?'
He drops his head in resignation: “I didn't know the answer. In my defence, it was pretty close.”
It is close: 293 conversions and 281 penalties. For the record, Carter guessed the wrong answer.
However, there was one number that haunted Carter for the bulk of his career: zero. From his first taste of Rugby World Cup disappointment in 2003, he was desperate not to finish his international career without being a World Champion.