Carter promises unfriendly welcome
Crusaders and All Black flyhalf Daniel Carter has promised Brumbies playmaker Christian Lealiifano a torrid welcome to Super 14 rugby when the two teams kick off the season in Christchurch on Friday.
Crusaders and All Black flyhalf Daniel Carter has promised Brumbies playmaker Christian Lealiifano a torrid welcome to Super 14 rugby when the two teams kick off the season in Christchurch on Friday.
Carter, the world's leading No.10 said that his team would attempt to unsettle Lealiifano and his rookie scrumhalf partner Josh Holmes in an attempt to gain the early ascendancy.
“They're young and they're inexperienced, so I'm sure some of our older and bigger blokes will give them a nice but fair welcome to Super 14 rugby,” Carter told The Canberra Times.
Carter is the fifth most prolific points scorer in Super Rugby history, but conceded that Lealiifano had the element of surprise in his favour.
Carter said he had viewed as much video footage of Lealiifano and Holmes as he has been able to find but conceded that amounted to very little.
“It's been hard to find much tape of them because they haven't played a great deal of top level rugby,” Carter said.
“But they're obviously very good players if they've made it into the Brumbies side.
They'll be excited. It's a big occasion for them but they'll handle it because the Brumbies halves have always been a threat over the years, no matter who they've been,” Carter conceded.
Holmes will play his first run-on match in Super 14 after playing four times off the bench for the Waratahs.
Carter will also be joined by an inexperienced halfback partner in Kahn Fotuali'i, who will make his debut for the Crusaders .
The 25-year-old will start at scrumhalf in front of All Black Andrew Ellis, who will come off the bench after only this week recovering from injury.
While the Brumbies line-up will be considerably different to last year, considering there will be no George Gregan-Stephen Larkham combination, the Crusaders will too be without the services of a number of stalwarts.
The six-time Super Rugby champions lost veterans Rico Gear, Aaron Mauger and Chris Jack in the off-season, while Reuben Thorne and Ross Filipo are injured.
Carter described the prospect of two relatively inexperienced sides playing each other in Round One as a different but exciting experience.
“We're in a pretty similar situation to the Brumbies in that we've lost quite a few cult faces,” he said.
“There's a lot of younger guys in both sides but it's exciting to think what they'll bring to the teams.
“From our point of view Kahn trained with us for a bit of last year and has shown what he's capable of producing so I'm completely confident we as a halfback pairing will go well,” he added.
Crusaders and Wallabies coach Robbie Deans has been impressed with what he has seen of Lealiifano and Holmes in the Brumbies' trial matches.
“They're clearly talented players and I thought both played very well in the trial against Wellington last weekend,” Deans said.
“I obviously haven't seen a whole lot of footage of them but from what I have seen they're going to be very tough.”