New Zealand boss Steve Hansen has praised the durability of Dan Carter ahead of the mercurial fly-half's first World Cup final.
Carter will be part of an unchanged All Blacks team for Saturday's showdown with Australia at Twickenham, which will be the 33-year-old's final international as he brings down the curtain on a 112-cap career before joining French club Racing 92.
Carter is nearing the end of his fourth World Cup campaign - he was injured when New Zealand triumphed on home soil four years ago - and Hansen says he deserves huge praise for bouncing back from his injury setbacks in recent years.
"He had an horrific run of injuries over a couple of seasons that took away his confidence," Hansen said. "Up until then he was relatively injury-free.
"If you are around long enough you are going to have a bit of adversity, and he's had two seasons of it prior to this year.
"It's the mark of the guy how he's come through that. A lot of people might have said 'enough's enough, I will chuck it in' but he stuck with it, and the big thing this season is he has had the ability to play game after game after game.
"It doesn't matter who you are, confidence is a massive thing in sport.
"When you start to play well it's like a snowball, and it gets bigger and bigger and all of a sudden it becomes an avalanche. When he's like that he's a special player."
Victory over Australia would make New Zealand the first team to defend the Webb Ellis Cup and Hansen admits he's had his work cut out to keep the players' feet on the ground.
Asked about the biggest challenge in terms of preparing for Saturday's final, he said: "Not getting too excited too early.
"You have got to build day by day, and the business part and fun part of the week is Saturday, so it's just making sure that we don't get carried away with ourselves because it's the final and start doing things differently.
"The formula is a pretty proven one for us -, we know what works for us. It's sticking to that and making good decisions.
"Being New Zealand coach is a feeling of humbleness and being grateful to have an opportunity, the great honour of being able to lead the team. It comes with a lot of responsibility, you don't want to let it down.
"Once you get over the daunting impact of it - you are expected to win all the time, and there is a lot of pressure that comes with being involved - once you realise that is going to be there anyway, it's a great place to be.
"I am a New Zealander, so there is not a better team in the world to be part of."
