Chris Rattue: Dan Carter's rare moment of sin

Dan Carter. Photo / Getty Images

As the jeers swirled around Cardiff's magnificent rugby temple a shiver went up the spine, in a living room a world away, and not only because the Welsh passion for this often distressingly turgid sport was giving life to our troubled national obsession.

Hand on a cold rugby heart, we are watching the finest first five-eighths who has ever played this game.

Daniel Carter may be in rugby's rickety dock for his grand slam on a Welshman, but he has moved even further into rugby lore, and rightly so.

What Carter delivered at the Millennium Stadium was what legions of rugby fans from any country would expect from their heroes, an explosive (if ultimately misjudged) effort to cut down an opposing attack at the pivotal moment in a match.

Carter's crushing hit lowered the replacement Welsh halfback Martin Roberts like a sack of coals, immediately mining years of Welsh discontent as a replay screencast repeated an instant judgment on a tackle that would have been lauded in darker ages.

Under the present rules - and good ones for safety reasons - Carter is guilty as charged by the Welsh crowd.

At the time of writing, the judicial committee had not delivered a verdict but a reasonable one would be a one-week suspension. Though would any fair judge want to see a player put out of a World Cup final for a similar marginal act? Certainly not, whether it be Carter, Richie McCaw, Jonny Wilkinson or even Bakkies Botha. In sport and elsewhere in life, it is easier to get a punishment to fit the crime in some cases than others.

What a moment, primarily because of the stirring crowd's response. Where would sport be without the raging controversies, and while Carter's halting of Roberts won't find a place in the halls of infamy alongside Maradona's Hand of God, Formula One's crash formula, or Andy Haden and Frank Oliver's double-double tuck with pike in Cardiff more than 30 years ago, it deserves a prominent spot in the foyer.

Wales were let down by the match officials, particularly a linesman who failed to award them a penalty, which could have had them better placed for an historic victory.

And the Welsh coach Warren Gatland was certainly not out of line in suggesting a yellow card was in order.

Gatland is not wrong either in claiming that reputations influence decisions. But the major problem in this case was that referee Craig Joubert was on the wrong side to get a clear view of the tackle's impact point.

Television replays from other angles told the real story.

Carter, a brave but normally clinical rather than ferocious tackler, had clearly decided that this was not a moment for taking prisoners.

He aimed a ferocious blow at the area in which Roberts was carrying the ball in an effort to dislodge it. And once you pull the trigger with that sort of intent there ain't no room for readjustment.

Roberts did fall slightly, making it more likely that Carter would clout him in the head, but players at this level must know that if they go ahead with this sort of tackle, there is a good chance it will end up being high.

He is guilty, and it would be a travesty if the judiciary ruled otherwise overnight.

Next act, the coaches' responses, and what we are to make of them.

More honesty would be nice, but it is not always the best policy for coaches, whose interests are never served by publicly doubting their players.

And when a judicial hearing is due, it would be negligent for a coach to imply any wrongdoing by his own player. Better to shut up completely, which is not what we got from the All Black coaches who chose, incorrectly, to disparage Gatland's views.

Graham Henry once ran a large school, but Manchester United's' Alex Ferguson is the headmaster in this particular school of hard knocks.

As Ferguson sees it, he has had decades in charge of faultless players, and suffered repeatedly at the whistle of foolish referees who plot in cahoots with his opponents to bring down his dynasties. Such is the conspiracy, it's a miracle that Ferguson sleeps at night.

Ferguson's blinkered, manipulative utterances are way too extreme, and continued this week.

He rightly claimed the crucial Chelsea free-kick which brought the game's only goal at Stamford Bridge was wrongly awarded.

Yet he conveniently forgot that his central defender Johnny Evans had just about put his studs through Didier Drogba's chest on the edge of the penalty area.

Yes, Chelsea scored an unfair goal, but they were also denied a plumb free-kick, and Evans should have been sent off.

Henry and Steve Hansen played a similarly duplicitous game, criticising Gatland as a method of defending the Carter tackle - and they are well practised in this art.

Henry's mob are typically passive-aggressive in these situations. They pretend at being champions of the game, and don't fire public arrows the way Alex Ferguson does. But they pull back the string as far as they can, and don't mind others shooting for them.

The false gravitas that comes out of the All Black camp and particularly Henry, the inference that they are men of rugby on a grand crusade rather than what they really are, just the standard-issue ruthless egomaniacs of top-level sport, is endlessly annoying. If only they could be more honest about their own motivations.

Carter's tackle was magnificent in its intent, but ultimately poorly executed and illegal. The NZRU may be overbearing and unbearable, and the Henry regime so smug it makes the skin crawl, yet it is an enthralling honour to witness the careers of Carter and Richie McCaw, whose skill in understanding and dealing with what rugby has become is keeping this team in the hunt.

Carter was immaculate in Cardiff, but of course he always is.

He doesn't have the razor-sharp sidestep of Phil Bennett, or the extreme wizardry of Mark Ella, or even maybe the ways of Australia's hooded, silent assassin, Stephen Larkham. (As rugby plods from one breakdown or bomb to the next, I find myself dreaming of the days of Larkham, and wondering if the game will ever return to a state that allows such a talent.)

As a goalkicker, Carter is superb, but lacks extreme distance. In every other way though, including defence, he is a supreme No 10.

The tackle on Roberts said so much.

Carter's forte is to tackle low, which is not only effective, but means he can be involved without putting his precious contributions at great risk.

When he had to, though, Carter went for the jugular, so to speak, another example of his versatility and superb reading of a game.

His control of matches at the highest level, his neverending working of the increasingly congested and brutal rugby chessboard, are a wonder and getting better by the season.

His tactical kicking is virtually immaculate, his goalkicking relentless. His positional play is spot on, and he is never ruffled. He invariably picks the right time to run and pass, and does it almost to perfection.

Selections across styles, eras and continents are a subjective business, and prone to patriotic leanings.

If this All Black team continues to rely on two magnificent players to save their bacon, and the South African juggernaut and its little ball-snaffler Heinrich Brussow continue to bloom, Carter is likely to finish his career without a World Cup triumph.

That would be used against any claim that he is the finest first five-eighths ever. Winning is everything, and the four-yearly tournament now overshadows everything else.

If you had to pick your all-time team, then Ella or Larkham and a good few European candidates would more than do at first five-eighths, with Ella perhaps the favourite, especially on entertainment value. A couple of Argentines would be candidates.

South Africans would rightly have their choices, although they never attacked with the genius of Ella, Bennett and Co.

Me though? I'd have Dan Carter, the all-round supremo, running the show.