Central figure with presence and power to deliver

John O’Sullivan looks at the career of the one Sale player who must be kept on a tight leash if Munster are to prevail tomorrow night

LUKE McALISTER boasts a long list of suitors, a state of affairs that won’t cost him a thought when set against the immediacy of tomorrow night’s pivotal Heineken Cup clash against Munster at Thomond Park.

The prodigiously gifted Sale Sharks centre is coveted not alone in Manchester but also by several clubs in France. There is also the small matter of his desire to someday renew his career with the All Blacks. The speculation regarding his future was given fresh impetus on January 1st because his contract at Sale is due to finish at the end of the season. Clubs are free to approach any player whose contract ends in the same year.

Sale would desperately like him to stay in a city where he spent nine happy years from the age of four to 13, while his father, Charlie, played for a succession of rugby league clubs, before the family returned to New Zealand. McAlister has intimated he won’t make a decision in the near future but it’s unlikely to silence the rumours. Toulon, Biarritz and Clermont Auvergne are reputed to be jostling for his signature.

Sale head coach Kingsley Jones sounded a note of cautious optimism. “I believe Luke really wants to stay here with Sale Sharks. He is very happy at the moment; it’s just whether we can compete with French clubs. Luke wants to be here for the right reasons, rugby and everything else, but he has to look after his future. If the figures being bandied round are true then it’s going to be very difficult to compete with that and have a squad of 30 players.2

If Munster supporters are hoping the background shenanigans will distract him, they’re likely to be disappointed. McAlister is a pretty laid-back individual, a fact best illustrated in his attitude to kicking. As he once observed: “I have always been a pretty good striker of a ball so I don’t do a hell of a lot of practice: just a bit here and there at the end of the week.”

The results belie his casual approach as several Munster players will attest not just with regard to the first meeting of tomorrow night’s combatants in the pool but for a couple, specifically Tomas O’Leary and Denis Fogarty to a sodden afternoon in 2004 at the Hughenden ground in Glasgow.

That day McAlister was an imperious figure in a lavishly gifted New Zealand team that beat Ireland 47-19 in the Under-21 World Cup Final.

He was the focal point in a stunning display of running rugby, breaking the gain line time and again before creating tries for several colleagues.

It’s interesting to note the contrasting rate of development between McAlister and O’Leary, both now 25 years of age. The Kiwi went on to play on 22 occasions for the All Blacks before deciding to move to England in the wake of New Zealand’s bitterly disappointing quarter-final defeat to France at the 2007 World Cup.

O’Leary’s climb to the Test arena has taken a little more time – he’s three caps to his name and is the current Irish scrumhalf – but he’s rightly come to be regarded as equally important to the provincial and national sides.

McAlister demonstrated in the reverse fixture at Edgeley Park earlier in the season his ability to break open a game, singlehanded: an amalgam of power and pace with sumptuous running lines and an instinctive appreciation how to create and exploit space. If Munster are to prevail then he is one Sale player who must be kept on a tight leash.

Sale’s director of rugby Phillipe Saint Andre – he leaves at the end of the season – captured the essence of McAlister’s appeal. “He has a presence. You can not measure it or even define it. All you can do is sense it.”

McAlister, who sports a Ta Moko Maori tattoo – 20 hours in the chair over a two-year period – can claim Irish ancestry but that fact along with another, in which he singled out Rua Tipoki as one of his two most difficult opponents, is merely biographical whimsy in the context of tomorrow night’s proceedings.

Sale know that their European aspirations begin and end in Munster’s Limerick citadel. Nothing less than victory will suffice and if they manage to emulate a feat only once achieved before in the Heineken Cup by the Leicester Tigers, McAlister is likely to have been a central figure.

Position: Centre

Height: 1.80m (5ft 11ins)

Weight: 95kg (15st)

Date of Birth: August 28th, 1983

Age: 25

Place of Birth: Waitara, Taranaki

Previous clubs: Blues, North Harbour, Silverdale Representative honours: New Zealand Caps: 22 (six as a replacement)

Points: 120 (seven tries)

Nickname: Lukey

Family: Astyn (daughter)