Dan Carter - the only modern great?
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Peter Bills mourns the death of the northern hemisphere's fly-half production line in The Irish Independent.
"Riverdance? Forget it. If you wanted to see real footwork, magical stepping and great movement, all you had to do was peruse the rugby fields of the world over the last 50 years and enjoy a long list of world-class out-halves.
"Consider some of the candidates for a lead role: Jack Kyle and Cliff Morgan from the 1950s; Scotland's Gordon Waddell from the 1960s, Mike Gibson, Barry John and Phil Bennett from the 1970s, Jonathan Davies in the 1980s...
"But alas, there is no current vintage of northern hemisphere players worthy of inclusion in such a list. Some think it a mystery as to why. For sure, one southern hemisphere out-half justifies inclusion in such an esteemed list. Dan Carter of New Zealand is a supreme talent: calm, authoritative and a shrewd, visionary reader of the play. Australian Quade Cooper is a one-off, a dynamic attacker but not quite yet the all-round performer that Carter is."
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