How many games will North bring to Wales?

The George North transfer saga drags on towards its sixth month, almost half a year to decide where he will play his non-Test rugby in Wales next season. Had he been subjected to the rules by which the Vatican conducted their Papal elections in the Middle Ages, he would have been locked in a room and served nothing more than bread and water, a diet designed to accelerate the decision-making process.

The Blues and Ospreys are left with no option but to keep their eyes skinned for the faintest sign of white smoke. They do so having asked a question in anticipation of North signing up to the 40 per cent part of his dual contract: How many matches will we get out of him in a season?

The question has some relevance in North’s case given that Northampton clearly feel that, even making full allowance for his lengthy absences for concussion, they ought to have got more. Lennie Newman, the Saints’ former team manager and second row, drew a telling analogy, likening North to ‘having a Ferrari in your garage but you can’t find the key for it’.

With two rounds of the Aviva Premiership remaining, North has started 11 first-team matches this season, a drop of more than 50 per cent on his debut season in 2013-14. The stable of internationals signed by the Welsh Rugby Union have averaged 11 starts for their region over the course of the current campaign – 11 out of a minimum 28-match season.

The figure has been lowered by the fact that one Welsh Lion, Sam Warburton, has not played at all and that another, Jonathan Davies, has been out of action since last November. A third dual contract signing, Ospreys’ lock Rory Thornton, has not played since then either following shoulder surgery.

Long-term injuries are such an integral part of rugby life that on any one weekend at any major professional club around 25 per cent of their playing staff are likely to be unfit. The Ospreys’ current casualty list, for example, stretched last week to 19 plus another Lion in Justin Tipuric, away on Commonwealth Games duty in Australia.

Of the dual-contracted elite, Ospreys’ lock Bradley Davies tops the list of most appearances for his region with 20. Nobody else comes close and yet Davies’ total shrinks when compared to the work load borne by another second row forward.

Tadhg Beirne had missed just one of the Scarlets’ 26 matches in the PRO14 and Europe before they rested their entire first team from the domestic chore in Edinburgh. His uncapped status and the IRFU’s policy not to pick anyone employed outside Ireland, unless he happens to be called Johnny Sexton, made Beirne available to the Scarlets every weekend.

“North’s like ‘having a Ferrari in your garage but you can’t find the key for it’”

At Munster next season as a fulltime IRFU employee, international demands will ensure Beirne is seen a lot less in his new team than in the one he leaves next month. The PRO14 suffers as a consequence, more so than the English Premiership whose players are owned by the clubs, hired by the RFU for England duty and returned to their employers during the fallow weeks of the Six Nations.

At the last count only four dual contracted Welshmen reached as far as double figures in PRO14 appearances this season – Davies, Dragons’ wing Hallam Amos, Ospreys’ back rower James King and Scarlets’ centre Scott Williams.

No wonder clubs are losing money by the millions.