Pay props to stay at home
OPINION: We all wring our hands when household name backs are lured overseas, but prop Charlie Faumuina looms as the All Blacks’ greatest loss since the World Cup.
The 30-year-old - very much in his prime - is headed to Toulouse for the start of the 2017-18 French Top 14 season.
Speculation has swirled about the potential exits of fullbacks Ben Smith and Israel Dagg and playmaker Aaron Cruden after the 2017 campaign with coach Steve Hansen conceding the All Blacks will be lucky to retain all three.
But the New Zealand rugby production factory spits out talented backs by the score and, as good as Smith, Dagg and Cruden are, ready-made replacements abound.
We should be more worried about the continuing Brawn Drain.
Tighthead props hardly grow on trees. Big Kiwi kids besotted with ball-running back-rowers, aren’t queuing up to play in the front row.
Faumuina offered the All Blacks much more than world rugby’s best and bushiest beard.
Many past practitioners of the dark scrummaging arts felt Faumuina was pushing 90-test incumbent Owen Franks for his starting spot.
Franks had a fine season in 2016 - arguably his best since the 2011 Rugby World Cup campaign - with Faumuina spurring him to new heights. The 29-year-old Crusader’s core work was impressive and he added subtleties to his game, including a deft halfstep and draw and pass skills.
Faumuina, a damaging runner, was better suited than Franks to the impact role so revered by the All Blacks coaching panel because their bench has proved such a point of difference.
That’s why 34 of his 46 test appearances have been off the bench.
The front row cupboard isn’t totally bare, but there is a big gap between Franks and Faumuina and the next tighthead tier.
Nepo Laulala played four tests in 2015 but missed the entire 2016 season with a knee injury. He was, however, breathing down Franks’ neck at the Crusaders before being lured away by the Chiefs.
Ofa Tu’ungafasi, Faumuina’s Blues buddy, made his All Blacks debut in 2016 in four cameo performances off the bench. He is built along similar lines to the great Carl Hayman but, at 24, remains a work in progress.
Jeffery Toomaga-allen, 26, played his only test at loosehead in 2013 but is a specialist tighthead. He missed most of the Hurricanes’ championship season in 2016 with a broken arm and is on the comeback trail.
You can’t blame a top-drawer tighthead for having his head turned by opportunities offshore.
New Zealand Rugby has traditionally flashed its cash at goalkicking five-eighths, tryscoring outside backs and turnover merchants in the back row.
European clubs have long prized props as key commodities on the international trading floor. A prop of Faumuina’s class could command $1 million a year at a cashed-up team like Toulouse.
Hayman left for England at the peak of his powers as a 28-year-old after the 2007 Rugby World Cup.
He sacrificed his dream of winning a World Cup for the rewards of becoming one of the best remunerated players on the globe.
John Afoa did win a World Cup winner’s medal in 2011, but he left after 36 tests for three years in Ireland with Ulster before moving to English club Gloucester on a reported $4 million four-year contract.
Franks’ big brother Ben - who could play tighthead and loosehead - departed for London Irish after the last World Cup. Forty-seven tests went with him.
New Zealand Rugby are set to share some of their latest broadcasting deal largesse - 37 per cent in fact - with their players.
The pay rise is set to make Kieran Read a $1 million man - fair enough given the goldfish bowl existence of being All Black captain.
Beauden Barrett should also be showered with cash but the All Blacks’ most valuable assets labour in the engine room where lock Brodie Retallick and hooker Dane Coles are among the best of all time.
And it all begins with that burly bloke in the No 3 jersey. You can’t build a big flash, multi-storey house without a solid foundation.