RUGBY NEWS:INJURED NEW Zealand outhalf Dan Carter is getting ready to start walking again as he enters the next phase of his long recovery period.

The 27-year-old All Black has spent most of the last two months with his leg in a cast after rupturing his Achilles tendon while playing for French club Perpignan.

New Zealand team doctor Deb Robinson said the cast was coming off this Friday but Carter would have to learn how to walk before he could run again.

“The very first thing he has to do is normalise his walking gait,” Robinson told a news conference yesterday.

“When people are in a moon boot (cast) and haven’t been able to bend and stretch the ankle, they lose their ability to have a normal gait pattern.”

Robinson said New Zealand had sent their own physiotherapist to France to oversee Carter’s initial rehabilitation but it was too early to speculate on when he would be able to play again.

“If things go well, I still think we’re looking at around the six to eight months mark for some sort of rugby,” she said.

“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.”