ON RUGBY:Graham Henry and the NZRU were not prepared to swallow their pride and call up players like Luke McAlister or Nick Evans as cover for the now injured Dan Carter, writes GERRY THORNLEY

A BAD weekend for New Zealand, and they took it bad. "Day of Heartbreak" was the page one headline in the New Zealand Herald, above the two reports of the Auckland Warriors' defeat in the NRL Grand Final to Manly in Sydney on Sunday night and, of course, Dan Carter's cruel withdrawal from the Rugby World Cup and his "Mum's tears for hometown hero". Likewise, there was a pictorial melange from the weekend's sports on the front page of the Otago Daily News, of a sunken Warriors team sitting on the turf of the ANZ Stadium, the celebrating Manly, some of the green hordes in Dunedin and Carter on the ground in agony after tearing his groin while practising goal-kicking on Saturday. The Agony and the Ecstasy.

On foot of the state of the nation address by Graham Henry at 10am on Sunday morning, confirming the rumours that whirled around via social networks and word of mouth ever since Saturday, Channel 1 interrupted their scheduling for a half-hour special at 1pm to fully report the story and analyse its impact.

Later in the afternoon, when Colin Slade carved through the Canadian defence and put Zac Guildford over for the first of his four tries, as commentator Ian Smith noted: “You can just hear a nation breathing a little easier.”

Slade’s every touch and movement and pass and kick were scrutinised, but as the sloppy passes and missed kicks crept into Slade’s game, so the doubts bubbled away.

On Sky Sports, Stuart Barnes was full of praise for the All Blacks’ potent running and finishing game but noted the kicks 15 metres or so in from the touchline were the kind of kicks which, ultimately, win or lose World Cups.

For the most part, most of the ex-All Blacks’ pundits were doing their damndest to back young Slade, with Michael Jones almost plaintively saying on television yesterday: “Stick with him, New Zealand.” Andrew Mehrtens admitted there were flaws in Slade’s game, such as a few botched kicks and moving the ball too wide, while the backline alignment was too deep and wide. Nonetheless, Mehrtens ventured that Slade will take the ball flatter and things will improve as his communication with his scrumhalf and those outside him improves.

But therein lies the rub, for not only has Jimmy Cowan’s passing been off-key in this tournament, thereby leaving scrumhalf open to question, but the All Blacks have never really invested in an understudy. Thus, if the All Blacks represented poor value at almost 2/1 on favourites to win the Cup with Carter, they make for even less value at 4/5 without him. No player in the world, least of all at outhalf, gives themselves seemingly as much time on the ball as Carter. Pretty much everything used to go through him. It was he who brought all the others into play.

For sure, they undoubtedly have more than enough fire-power sans Carter to put away Argentina in Sunday’s quarter-final, all the more so given Los Pumas have effectively lost their two best players with Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe joining Juan Martin Hernandez on the sideline. But come the semi-final, or final, if the going gets tough, they won’t have Carter to bail them out of trouble as he has done so many times before.

“Rotation” is the dirtiest word in the New Zealand rugby lexicon, but rotation didn’t cost the All Blacks that epic quarter-final against France four years ago so much as an inspired France, their own loss of nerve in abandoning their game of the previous four years and adopting pick-and-go, some decisions that went against them and the lack of experience to take responsibility and opt for a drop goal in the endgame. With Nick Evans following Carter out of that game, meantime Aaron Mauger was sitting in the stand as an unused squad member.

They evidently haven’t learned their lesson. Instead of replacing Carter with a player of some experience, Evans has since flown the coop and Luke McAlister, given little incentive to stay, is currently steering Toulouse to the top of the Top 14 as a prolific, points-gathering, playmaking outhalf with seemingly some of the best rugby of his life. But Henry and the All Blacks and one ventures the NZRU, couldn’t swallow their pride and call either player up.

So, instead, they have been left with a 22-year-old with just six caps, backing up a 23-year-old with just nine caps; Aaron Cruden having been summoned from ITM Cup rugby to understudy a player who effectively missed virtually all his first Super 15 season with the Hurricanes.

In the final analysis, while there was never going to be any replacing Carter. How do you replace the world’s best player? But they could have had more contingency plans. For example, in the fall-out from the World Cup, with “rotation” abandoned, Carter started 14 of the All Blacks’ 15 Tests, the only exception being when Stephen Donald started the first of their Grand Slam tour matches against Scotland (and then had his horror night in Limerick, when he was far from alone).

Although injury delayed his return to the All Blacks until halfway through the Tri Nations in 2010, again Carter remained a fixture thereafter, starting against Wales, England and France, with the only exception on their end-of-season tour being against Italy in Milan, where Mike Delany was the number 10. Likewise, in 2010, Carter started all three warm-up matches, all six Tri Nations games and all four of their Grand Slam tour matches.

Hence, Slade only made his debut against Australia last year, before making his first start (and winning his second cap) in the seasonal warm-up game against Fiji and the defeat to South Africa in Port Elizabeth, when the All Blacks rested several front-liners for their penultimate Tri Nations game.

Meanwhile, five of Cruden’s six caps have been as a replacement.

Along the way, Donald has seemingly never been forgiven for his tricky night in Thomond Park against Munster, nor McAlister for suffering a crisis of confidence last season, but as his rejuvenation with Toulouse has shown, his speed, genuine flair, strength and massive boot haven’t gone away. And McAlister can only have learned from all the peaks and troughs in his career, not least four years ago in Cardiff. There was no replacing Carter, for sure, but you can’t beat experience, and the All Blacks may have missed a trick there.

CARTER TRYING TO STAY POSITIVE AFTER 'GUT-WRENCHING' BLOW

DAN CARTER yesterday described the injury that ended his World Cup dream as "gut-wrenching" but said he would do anything in his power to help the All Blacks win the tournament without him.

On Saturday, he suffered a groin injury during routine kicking practice which prevented him from winning his 85th cap in the All Blacks' final group match against Canada and ultimately ended his tournament.

"I knew it was going to be pretty serious just because of the pain and because it was quite unusual," he said at the team hotel.

"I've kicked thousands of balls since I was a young fellow and I'd never had this happen.

"I just felt it pop, hence going down to the ground in agony."

Although he eased himself gingerly into his chair yesterday, Carter was pretty much his usual self at the news conference and even flashed a smile or two.

He said, however, he had spent a bleak Saturday night in bed reflecting on "the craziest day of my life", which started with being handed the All Blacks captaincy and ended with "one of the dreams" of his life shattered.

"It is pretty gut-wrenching and really disappointing but I have to get over it and think positively and help the guys in any way I can," he said. "It's important that the country get over it and move on and continues to support the All Black side. Now we're in the play-offs, the support is even more important."