1. Jonny Wilkinson (England)
CARTER SAID: “Probably because I held him in such high regard and had a huge amount of respect for him, it was Jonny Wilkinson. He was an absolute student of the game,
“It was a wild, windy test match down in Wellington, I was on the bench and I hadn’t played a test match for the All Blacks, and he just took that game and, as a 10 that wants to control a game, I’ve never seen anything like it.
“I got the best seats in the house on the bench. Part of me was going, ‘Man, do I really want to get on here because he’s just completely dominating this game’.
“Thankfully I didn’t. I made my test debut the following week, which was a much better game to remember, but I just remember sitting there going, ‘If I ever do play 10’ – I was playing 12 a lot then – ‘this is how you need to control a game’.
“I had a huge amount of respect for him and playing against him.”
DID YOU KNOW? Wilkinson’s brother, Mark, was also a Newcastle player who made 16 appearances in the Premiership for the side between 2002 and 2005, predominantly as a centre