All Blacks winger Leroy Carter timing his run to perfection on Super Rugby Pacific return with Chiefs

Tuesday, 16 June 2026

Just like his incision that led to his eye-catching try on Friday night, Leroy Carter looks to be timing his run to perfection on return from a frustrating stint on the sidelines.

With a hamstring injury having kept him out of action for seven weeks, the Chiefs winger returned with a bang in the 49-12 Super Rugby Pacific semifinal crushing of the Crusaders, to give the new All Blacks selectors an immediate reminder of his credentials.

The former national sevens rep had enjoyed a rapid rise in 2025, proving a star performer in his first season of Super footy, and while he missed the cut in Scott Robertson’s first squad of the year, was eventually called upon for the Rugby Championship and northern tour, making a fine impression in the former, before struggling more in the latter.

The 27-year-old, who earlier this year extended his contract with the Chiefs through 2028, had then hit his stride well in the new season before being struck down in Super Round in Christchurch, in the win over the Fijian Drua.

That enforced absence, and the hot form of some other wingers around the country, had made Carter something of a forgotten man across the back end of the regular season.

But now with the season-ending injury to Highlanders rep Caleb Tangitau, the continued absence of Chiefs team-mate Emoni Narawa with a foot problem, the murky contract status of Hurricanes hot shot Fehi Fineanganofo, not to mention the fact fellow Chiefs star Kyren Taumoefolau isn’t available until the end of the year, Carter has suddenly shot right back into the reckoning for new All Blacks coach Dave Rennie.

That was after a splendid semifinal cameo, in front of the All Blacks assistant coaches in the FMG Stadium Waikato grandstand, where Carter was injected earlier than expected off the bench due to Isaac Hutchinson’s injury.

It took him less than five minutes to make a statement in the Chiefs’ stunning first half, bursting over for the hosts’ fifth try, where he worked deliberately hard to run himself into position for Damian McKenzie to hit him with a pass 20 metres from the Crusaders’ line, proceeding to then carve between Taha Kemara and Braydon Ennor, sidestep Jamie Hannah, and celebrate with a big dive behind the sticks.

Going on to log five carries and 52 metres, with two clean breaks and a game-high five defenders beaten, the repaired hamstring that was sporting a decent dose of white strapping tape indeed got the definitive tick of approval.

“It was a little bit of tendon as well [as the muscle], so that’s why it took a little bit longer than expected [to heal],” Carter told the Waikato Times after the match.

“But it felt all good out there. So confidence is definitely back into it.”

Carter even went longer than prescribed with his game-time, revealing he was supposed to have been limited to 30 minutes, but, with injuries to Quinn Tupaea and Lalakai Foketi that also saw him play centre (as he has done at other times already this season), he logged more like 45.

“That’s why they brought me off at the end of the game [with a dozen minutes to play], which I wasn’t too happy about,” he quipped.

“I was keen as, eh. Seven weeks is a long time on the sideline.

“But it was probably a good call.”

Indeed, now primed for Saturday night’s final against the Hurricanes in Wellington, it is Carter’s last chance to impress Rennie, who he has had some chats with at Chiefs training earlier in the season, before the 34-man All Blacks squad is named in Feilding on Monday.

Enough time for an impression?

“Oh, who knows,” Carter says. “All I can control is how I play, so as long as I do that, then the rest is up to Rennie, and if he likes me, he likes me, if he doesn’t, he doesn’t.”

As the Chiefs look to rid their finals hoodoo (bridesmaids the last three, and four of the last five, years), Carter will now be hoping to change his own fortunes at Hnry Stadium, where he is 0-4, with both fond but painful memories.

While he made his test debut there against the Springboks, and scored a try to boot, it came in what was the All Blacks’ biggest-ever loss. Earlier that year the table-topping Chiefs had been stunned by a Hurricanes comeback.

And a year earlier, there were twin golden-point heartbreaks for Bay of Plenty against Wellington, in the regular season and also the final, matches where Carter had one Fineanganofo alongside him.

On Saturday night, friends will turn foes, as Carter faces a potential head-to-head against his former All Blacks Sevens team-mate, and also coach, with Clark Laidlaw having been the man responsible for a life-changing national contract that allowed Carter to down tools as an electrical apprentice to instead travel the world playing sevens, and, four years later, ultimately land at this point.

All Blacks wing watch

Unavailable: Caleb Tangitau (achilles), Kyren Taumoefolau (on three-year stand-down after representing Tonga)

On the move: Sevu Reece (France), Fehi Fineanganofo (England, or is he?)

Locked in: Caleb Clarke

The hybrid: Leicester Fainga’anuku (now injured)

Likely: Leroy Carter (just back from seven-week hamstring layoff)

Possibly: Emoni Narawa (sidelined since April 4 with broken bone in foot)

Another option: Will Jordan (could shift from fullback, pending calf injury)

Potential new faces: Chay Fihaki (Crusaders), Josh Moorby (Hurricanes), Kini Naholo (Hurricanes)