Keep Lomu’s sons out of it
OPINION: Shame on the French Rugby Federation for using the late Jonah Lomu’s kids to support their World Cup hosting bid when they could have enlisted Dan Carter.
France are desperate to host the 2023 Rugby World Cup finals but face stiff competition from South Africa and Ireland.
The French Rugby Federation (FFR) need celebrity endorsement and a big tick from an All Blacks superstar would clearly help.
Why not go, in that case, to someone like Carter, Ma’a Nonu or Conrad Smith - all World Cup winners currently playing in France?
Jonah Lomu was the most recognisable rugby face on the planet until his tragic death from a heart attack triggered by kidney disease in 2015.
He was also world rugby’s greatest ambassador.
Carter is, arguably, the only other rugby figure who would turn heads down the Champs Elysess.
One of the greatest All Blacks of all-time, he has been living in Paris since 2015.
He would be well qualified to talk (possibly even in fractured French) about living in playing in France and his memories of the 2007 Rugby World Cup final hosted by France.
If the FFR decided Carter’s credibility had been dented by his drink driving arrest and conviction last year, they could have turned to the squeaky-clean Smith - now playing for Pau - or the natty dreaded Nonu, a cult figure with Toulon.
Would they not have carried more clout than two Kiwi kids who happen to have a famous dad?
Instead, the FFR - led by president Bernard Laporte (who is facing conflict of interest allegations) - have turned to Brayley and Dhyreille Lomu with the backing of their mother, Nadene.
The Lomu lads were pictured at a candidate presentation in London with the French bid team.
Posing enigmatically beside them were French Rugby Federation (FFR) chairman Bernard Laporte, and Sebastien Chabal - the former backrower dubbed The Beast, who helped France beat the All Blacks in the Cardiff quarterfinal in 2007.
Jonah Lomu - who scored 37 tries in 63 tests - was the most recognisable rugby face on the planet.
He was revered in France and mobbed whenever he played or trained there on All Blacks tours.
Lomu had a short stint at the end of his career in Marseille. Nadene, his widow, told Le Parisien that ‘‘Jonah loved this country very much’’ and it was her family’s second home.
‘‘Dhyreille was born in Marseille. He tells everyone that he is French.’’
They might want to, as they said to Le Parisien, to play rugby for France one day.
But should two boys still at primary school be used for an essentially political exercise? It might be different if they were in their mid-teens, but Dhyreille was six and Brayley five when their beloved dad died in November 2015.
Laporte claimed it was ‘‘moving to have them with us, [and] very good of them to have come all the way from New Zealand’’.
Bear in mind, however, that Laporte is a politician.
He served in the French cabinet as Secretary of State for Sports from 2007 to 2009 after eight years as France’s national rugby coach.
Did the Lomus travel to France on a whim? Apparently not. Nadene Lomu told Le Parisien the idea came from the French bid team director Claude Atcher, who knew Lomu from his time in Marseille.
Was the Lomu family paid? Who knows - and who cares.
You could hardly blame them if they did accept a decent dollop of Euros, if the FFR were silly enough to offer inducement.
The FFR plan was calculated to create maximum impact. But they run the risk of being accused of a word common to the English and French languages: exploitation.
We’re not the only media outlet to suggest so.
The Irish Independent said: ‘‘When you pluck two kids out of a country on the other side of the world and drop them into the middle of your facade to accentuate their link to their deceased father, it’s just desperately insensitive and depressingly sad.’’
Pundit Arena rugby writer Nick Heath tweeted that the FFR move seemed ‘‘a little crass’’.
The FFR - rather like Thierry Dusautoir’s team in the 2011 World Cup final - may also have missed a golden chance.
The World Rugby movers and shakers would have been more impressed if Carter - a three-time world player of the year - had been front and centre of the French bid.