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All Black great Dan Carter has revealed just how close he came to pursuing a career in the NFL after the World Cup in 2015.
In an exclusive interview with rugbypass.com, the 36-year-old first-five admitted to holding talks with the New England Patriots about joining the Boston-based club as a kicker before deciding on Racing 92 in France.
"I got the opportunity to go to Boston and see the Patriots facilities, I thought I was just having a tour of their facilities . . . but I arrived there and two of their scouts came out straight away and said 'right, let's go onto the pitch and have a kick'," Carter said.
"I was like, what's going on here?
"They'd obviously done some research ... they just wanted to see if I could kick a ball or not. They'd obviously seen some Youtube clips or something - that I could kick a ball."
Carter, who quit international rugby after guiding the All Blacks to a third World Cup, had been quietly battling a knee injury at the time, and was unable to take part in the impromptu trial.
"I had to decline the offer to go have a kick but they said 'Mr Kraft [US businessman and Patriots owner Robert Kraft] wants to have a few words with you'.
"He [Kraft] was straight to it and asked 'how long have you wanted to play in NFL? What are you going to bring to the team?' and I thought, 'woah, this is quite full-on'.
"Then he goes, 'cool, the scouting team want to have a chat with you to work out how it will work to bring someone like yourself into trials'.
"It was a real eye-opener, absolutely I learned a lot about kicking and things."
Patriots owner Robert Kraft. Photo / Getty
Although Carter admits being tempted by a move to the US and a crack at gridiron, a stint in France offered "more security" for his young family.
The potential difficulties of being an NFL kicker was also a consideration, he said.
"The biggest thing that I would've found difficult is when I'm at the back of my run-up, the ball's sitting on the tee. It's there. I know where it is, I've got my eyes, my focus on it.
"With American football, there's nothing there. At all! So you start your run-up and there's no ball. So there's so much trust [in teammates]. That would've taken some getting used to," said Carter.
"At the end, they said 'we want you to send us a video of you kicking' and so I went away pretty motivated thinking 'this could be quite cool, maybe my retirement plan.'
"But the more I thought about it, I thought I've got a young family to think about and so I didn't really look at it too seriously, to be honest, and decided to look at playing in France for a few more years.
"I've always thought that being involved in rugby, it would be nice to do something different but over the last few years it's what I know, it's what I love, so rugby has given me everything in my life and it's such a powerful tool to change people's lives, and I'd love to use rugby as a way to give back somehow."
Carter is set to join Kobe Steelers in Japan after this weekend's European Champions Cup final against Leinster in Bilbao.
