What Dan can expect: Same game ... different rules

"It is the most aggressive club competition I was involved in." Photo / Jason Oxenham

Star No 10 will step into a world of aggro and pressure when he goes to France, says Patrick McKendry.

In French rugby, different rules apply. Dan Carter got a taste of what life will be like at Racing Metro when he played five matches for Perpignan in 2009 before a ruptured Achilles brought his lucrative sabbatical to a painful end.

But if he were in any doubt as to the contrast between the game in New Zealand and France, he need only turn his attention to the recent controversies over Toulon players Martin Castrogiovanni and Delon Armitage.

Castrogiovanni, the Italian prop who has a tremendously short fuse, was fined $20,000 and banned for four matches for an expletive-laden rant against Leicester coach Richard Cockerill after Toulon's European Champions' Cup defeat in England this month.

Castrogiovanni took issue with suggestions he left Leicester last year for money, calling his own press post-game conference where he used language that would make the saltiest of dockers blush.

English fullback Armitage was suspended for 12 weeks for using offensive language towards spectators at the same match.

The often fiery atmosphere of French and European rugby is a far cry from the more business-like game in New Zealand. Crowds are a good example. There he will play in stadiums built for rugby and packed with baying supporters. For the Crusaders he often plays in half-empty generic stadiums with atmospheres to match.

It will be just one change he will have to adjust to as he becomes the highest-paid player in the game.

One thing he has become atuned to is high expectations, but former All Blacks halfback Justin Marshall and loose forward Scott Robertson, who spent a season at Montpellier and three seasons at Perpignan respectively, believe the French expectations of Carter, who will be 33 when he joins Racing Metro next December, will go to a new level.

Said Robertson: "They will want him to be a leader and they will want him to perform, that comes with the territory," he said. "He will understand that."

Marshall said Racing would want Carter to emulate former England No 10 Jonny Wilkinson's success at Toulon.

"I would imagine the expectation levels because of the contract - it is a lucrative contract and everyone is aware of it - they will be wanting their pound of flesh," he said.

"When you think about Jonny Wilkinson at Toulon - he was previously the highest paid player and he lived up to expectation.

"He was extremely influential in their recent success. They love him there and he more than justified his contract through his performances on the field."

Another old standard in French rugby is that they play like Tarzan in front of their home crowd and like Jane away, something which frustrated Marshall.

"It was the defeatist attitude that aggravated me, particularly at Montpellier ... for example, in our first game we played against Toulouse, the current champs, at home and beat them.

"The following week we played the team they played in the final, Clermont, and the whole week was about 'we're not going to beat them down there', so we sent our B team and got beaten by 70 points."

Marshall said the cliche of French rugby being dirty held an element of truth.

"The French are emotional people," he said. "They're pretty passionate and sometimes that emotion overrides common sense. I certainly know from my experiences playing club rugby there that there were lots of flare ups.

"It is the most aggressive club competition I was involved in."