Toulon spending big on flawed Fekitoa
Toulon think they are signing a topclass All Black in Malakai Fekitoa.
The French club are certainly paying him as if he’s an All Black superstar.
Perhaps, though, they should have dug a little deeper when doing their due diligence, for what they have actually signed is a good player with a number of obvious qualities but one who has increasingly been unable to hide or eliminate his equally apparent flaws.
There’s so much to like about Fekitoa and yet for the past 18 months or so, he’s induced a feeling that something is not quite right with his game. When he burst into Super Rugby in 2014, he was a revelation.
He was a classic instinct player — young, fearless, uninhibited and unburdened. He trusted his footwork and acceleration when he had the ball, his explosive timing and commitment when he didn’t.
He’d make a few mistakes, such were the risks that he took, but he never seemed to dwell on them even if some were costly. He looked to be the heir apparent to Conrad Smith because there was always this sense that the more Fekitoa played, the more he would balance his game. He was a little reminiscent of Ma’a Nonu, who also came into test football with a portfolio that was 80 per cent explosive magic, 20 per cent wild and unpredictable.
But Nonu changed the equation over time, learned the art of good decision- making and came to be close to 100 per cent explosive magic. That path was one Fekitoa struggled to find last year. Accurate decision- making became an enormous struggle for him. It tied him in knots. He became wooden, almost as if he was overthinking everything and the balance went in the wrong direction.
His explosive magic became harder to see and he regressed. Not much changed this year and the deeper concern was that it may never change. It is possible that Fekitoa played above his true ability in his first test season and may in fact be a good Super Rugby player rather than a genuine All Black.
It wasn’t a surprise that he was dropped by the All Blacks. It was, however, a surprise just how far he had fallen. When the squad to play the Lions was announced, Fekitoa wasn’t rated among the top five midfielders. He had fallen behind Sonny Bill Williams, Ryan Crotty, Ngani Laumape and Anton Lienert- Brown.
What may have troubled him most was that young Jack Goodhue had sneaked ahead of him as well. It was a long way to fall in a relatively short time and while coach Steve Hansen hoped Fekitoa would take on board messages about improvement and then commit to staying in New Zealand to fight his way back, he always knew it was a forlorn hope.
Fekitoa doesn’t lack resilience or depth of character, but he’s smart enough to see that it may be a futile business throwing his soul at something he may not be able to change. The reality that may have dawned on him is that Laumape, Lienert- Brown and Goodhue are better players — better equipped to deal with all the demands of the role.
And if Toulon are willing to overlook that, contract him on the sort of package extended to the biggest name All Blacks, then he’d have been mad to have turned them down.