Rugby: Carter taking small steps to recovery

Injured All Black Dan Carter is staying in Perpignan to recover from his ruptured achilles tendon. Photo / Getty Images

All Blacks first five-eighth Dan Carter is ready to start learning to walk again, almost eight weeks after he ruptured his Achilles tendon playing for Perpignan in France last month.

All Blacks team doctor Deb Robinson said at a media conference today that Carter's progress since surgery to repair the tendon had been exemplary.

All Blacks physio Peter Gallagher had travelled to France and met Carter in Perpignan yesterday (NZT).

"Pete's very happy with where Dan is at. The wound is looking good, although the calf is obviously wasted because he's been in a moon boot for nearly eight weeks," Robinson said today.

Carter signed with Perpignan for euro700,00 ($1,781,175) for a six-month stint, but played only five games from mid December before he ruptured his Achilles in early February.

Robinson said Carter would be out of the moon boot by Friday, and re-learning how to walk would be his first priority.

"The very first thing he has to do is normalise his walking gait. When people are in a moon boot and haven't been able to bend and stretch the ankle, they lose their ability to have a normal gait pattern," she said.

Carter had been able to take his leg out of the moon boot over recent weeks and work through a range of motions.

"That's a help right from the start. You have to adopt an odd walking pattern to tolerate a cast or moon boot, so we just have to change that back into a normal walking gait."

Robinson said Gallagher would spend the next 10 days working with Carter on his rehabilitation programme, which would include general as well as specific strengthening work and an aqua jogging programme.

"Dan tends to his rehabilitation and his personal conditioning in an exemplary way, and works really hard on things he can do," Robinson said. "He's been working hard in the gym doing those things, and now we can add in some more upper body work."

She was cautious about naming an exact time for Carter's likely return to rugby: "If things go well, I still think we're looking at around the six to eight months mark for some sort of rugby.

"Obviously once he gets into running, it's a little bit of how he responds to that. We'll probably be able to count out the weeks a little bit better from that stage.

"We'd want to see him when he's getting back into rugby-related training. It'd be nice to be able to supervise that."

Robinson said Carter was also using the enforced lay-off to do some strengthening work after experiencing occasional trouble with the odd "stinger" in his neck.

- NZPA