A Black day for New Zealand

RUGBY: Gerry Thornley pays tribute to the player whose international retirement is bad for the game in general, and the All Blacks in particular

Forget, for a moment, that tackle. Yesterday, test rugby lost a true legend and the game globally is the poorer for that. The news that Tana Umaga has retired from international rugby at a mere 32 is also disappointing because on the evidence of 2005, it looks a premature curtain call. The game is about players, first and foremost, and last year none left a bigger imprint on the game than the All Blacks captain, centre and talisman.

Graham Henry, who must surely have hoped Umaga could have gone on to the 2007 World Cup, maintained that Umaga will go down not only as one of the great All Blacks, but also a great All Blacks captain. Having led the All Blacks to a Lions whitewash, a Tri-Nations crown and only the second Grand Slam of the four home unions in one season, who could quibble?

It's a terrible pity that of all the clips Sky News could have shown from Umaga's illustrious career, they chose the belated camera angle of him and Keven Mealamu lifting O'Driscoll up and then dumping him into the Christchurch turf at the first ruck in the first minute of the first Test.

For sure, it was an appalling act of skulduggery, which had no business on any sports field, and overshadowed the scale of the All Blacks' first Test win, in which Umaga played a blinder highlighted by his stunning 30-metre, right to left pass across his body for Siviteni Sivivatu's try.

No less than the All Blacks management and the New Zealand Union, Umaga could have handled the fallout a whole lot better. Instead, Umaga and the All Blacks felt backed into a corner by a system that punishes admittance of wrong-doing and by the perceived spin-doctoring of Alastair Cambpell, Clive Woodward and co. So they dug their heels in, and his fellow players menacingly surrounded their captain at a press conference fully three days after the event, with brickbats by now mounting from the likes of the normally blindly loyal New Zealand Herald.

The announcement of Umaga's name drew the loudest, most condemnatory round of booing and derision ever directed at an All Black in his own country by the huge contingent of Lions supporters in Wellington for the second Test.

However, the net result was that an ultra-motivated Umaga scored the first of the All Blacks' five tries in leading them to their mesmeric 48-18 victory, and eventually Henry hailed his skipper as the player of the series. Again, few arguments there.

Yesterday, Henry cited Umaga's bravery, tackling and willingness to lead from the front as the mark of a great All Black captain, to which could of course be added Umaga's dynamic running and eye for the try line - witness a test haul of 36 tries from 74 tests, 21 of those as captain.

He also won the Pierre de Coubertin Award in 2003 in Hamilton for attending to a concussed Welsh captain Colin Charvis rather than play on, and in this part of the world we will perhaps never appreciate the significance in Umaga, of Samoan heritage, becoming the first All Black captain of Polynesian extraction.

For all the furore and anger about his dumping of O'Driscoll, this writer must confess to getting a real buzz out of Umaga granting a 30-minute one-on-one interview in the week of the third Test when the dust had largely settled. In his presence, one couldn't but be impressed by the innate humbleness and pride of a true legend, but also the goldfish bowl-like existence of an All Black captain.

Amid an almost daily debate in New Zealand as to whether he was going to lead his country toward their Holy Grail in France in 2007, Umaga was giving clear signals as to his mindset. "I'm enjoying playing but I've got a young family to think of and I don't want to be watching my children play in a wheelchair when I get older," said Umaga, who has one son, Cade, and two daughters, Gabirelle and Lilly-Kate.

"I've had two chances. Some people don't get any. That's just the way life is. My main motivation was always playing for the All Blacks. I've achieved that a number of times and that's more than a number of people can say. My main motivation is to look after my children," he told me then, and on returning from their Grand Slam tour Umaga poignantly revealed that the youngest of his three children, Lilly-Kate, didn't recognise him for a few days.

On the second of those chances, Umaga spent much of the 2003 World Cup unsuccessfully fighting a slight hamstring tear and then watching his team-mates come up short at the semi-finals again, when the departure of Justin Marshall left them chronically short of leaders.

At least Umaga has dismissed reports of a retirement package at Harlequins, possibly alongside Marshall and Andrew Mehrtens, but that problem could now resurface, given there is no-one of Umaga's experience to take over. The injury-prone Richie McCaw has been chosen for the meantime, but from a very short shortlist that otherwise could only have numbered Chris Jack and Aaron Mauger, and perhaps Byrone Kelleher, at this juncture. Coupled with the knock-out nature of World Cups, Umaga's retirement is a reminder as to how fickle the All Blacks' favouritism might be once again.

Forget the world. The All Blacks will miss him more than anybody.