Carter targets comeback for Auckland Shield challenge

Daniel Carter

Injured All Blacks first five-eighth Dan Carter wants to make his rugby comeback to help Canterbury defend the Ranfurly Shield against Auckland on October 8.

Carter has not played since colliding with Wallabies back Clyde Rathbone in the Tri- Nations test in Sydney on August 13.

He has been making his way back to full fitness and will begin practising his goalkicking this week.

"Hopefully I'm going to work on that later in the week and slowly start kicking the ball around again," Carter said today.

"I've just been easing my way into it, getting back into running and progressing from there."

Carter will not play for Canterbury in the NPC first division match against Otago on Saturday but has stated he wants to return for the team's Ranfurly Shield defence of the season against Auckland in Christchurch one week later.

Carter has been to Canterbury training sessions for the past week and comfortably took part in ball games with his teammates.

"I'm just keen to get the moves in mind, so that when I do come back I'm ready to go and up to date with everything."

When Carter originally injured his leg there were fears he would be ruled out of the grand slam tour of Britain with the All Blacks in November.

But providing he does not suffer a setback in the NPC, he appears certain to be picked for the tour.

Because he did not need to wear a cast on his leg, there had been no wasting of the muscle and he had been swimming and doing upper-body gym work as he waited for his lower leg to recover.

"Things like acceleration and my top-end speed are not quite there yet -- probably 80 and 90 (per cent) -- and I've still got a bit of work to do before I can start playing," he said.

"In last few weeks I've just been out there doing a bit of running; short, sharp stuff to build the muscles up because I haven't really done much in terms of that for a month or so."

- NZPA