Rumours of Melbourne rugby interest in winger Manu Vatuvei sound genuine
The new rugby and league seasons have yet to see a ball kicked in genuine anger, although temperatures will already be rising Penrose way.
The Warriors' league wing Manu Vatuvei - a runaway truck in the straight forward gears and still learner driver in reverse - is said to be
a target of the new Melbourne rugby franchise.
With the faithful wondering about the state of this country's NRL outfit, what with the strange demotion of Steve Price from the captaincy, the rumour around the sometimes fabulous wing strikes another jarring note.
The Vatuvei headline has already been written, the potential distraction in a new season - after a horrid 2009 for the Warriors - already in place.
Such stories are convenient when talking up the price of your man, although Vatuvei still has two more years on his Warriors' contract so these are early days for haggling.
Japanese and French rugby clubs are said to be interested in Vatuvei, but aren't they always on the hunt?
And those mysterious characters known as NFL American gridiron scouts were mentioned. The day a rugby or league footballer actually hops on the plane and tries out in the NFL, let alone gets within a third-and-long of succeeding, is the day to start taking those inflationary NFL scouting stores seriously.
The Melbourne rugby interest in the 23-year-old Vatuvei does sound genuine however, if only because he is just the sort of large character a new Aussie rugby mob would love to build their publicity drive around.
Rugby has backs to the wall in Melbourne, where Aussie Rules rules. And unfortunately for league, the NRL is begging to lose highly marketable players such as Vatuvei because of a stupidly low and inflexible salary cap.
Yet for all of his superstar potential, the Rebels are on to a loser.
If common sense, rather than dollars and cents, wins the day, Vatuvei will stick to the league highways he knows best, rather than wasting his days trying to negotiate union's spaghetti junctions.
There is a new mood rising in rugby, a realisation the game must rediscover an attacking joy, yet a man mountain novice of dubious skills will struggle to adapt.
The scenario does raise interesting questions about All Black eligibility, and what the New Zealand Rugby Union might do should a brilliant new talent emerge via one of the Australian Super 15 teams.
If the aim of the All Black eligibility rule is to ensure the home audience is not robbed of watching our best players, then playing in the Super 15 (as it will be from next year) for an Aussie side would seem to meet that criteria sufficiently enough not to automatically rob the national team of a brilliant prospect. Not only that, but the Aussies would be helping out by footing part of his wage.
What if a new All Black-eligible superstar emerges across the ditch? The All Blacks would be off their rockers to ignore that, and maybe even gift him to the Wallabies.
Another man will have to tread these waters however because Vatuvei won't be a good enough rugby player to qualify as a test case.
Dexterity, kicking ability, secure hands, clever reads in defence, instinctive moves, acceleration, confidence in retrieving kicks - these are stock-in-trade for rugby's best outside backs, but you won't find them in the massive Vatuvei warehouse.
Learning the arts of securing and challenging for the ball in rugby tackles will be difficult enough.
Big Manu would look great on Melbourne billboards, but the bright lights will fade when the rugby reality strikes home for such a cumbersome man. He may also find rugby players are much stronger than they look.
As for the Melbourne raiders, these Rebels would be buying a player who is injury prone and would be more so twisting and turning in rugby's convoluted formations.
Vatuvei and Melbourne are welcome to try to prove an outright sceptic wrong, but as with Sonny Bill Williams, this would be another brilliant league career wasted.
* I've never managed to stick through a whole Twenty20 game. The latest attempt came as Central Districts and Wellington duked it out in the HRV Cup. Four overs I lasted, watching an array of dreadfully delivered wides and full tosses. This country's best batsman, Ross Taylor, could be seen slinging the ball like a B-grade bowler who has been dared never to hit the stumps.
Chunks of the batting looked like business-house softball. What went on is what old coaches of the proper game would have spent years trying to eradicate. The only plus was some stunningly good fielding. I'm delighted so many people are loving this form of cricket. Count me out though.
* Why the mood of celebration over Shane Bond's mega IPL deal. So - he got rich. IPL money has helped persuade Bond, our star fast bowler, to quit the test team. And that is a total disaster - as is the ICC's lame-duck administration of cricket.
* There will never be a more stunning sight in sport than that of Roger Federer, in full cry or not. The way he dismantled Lleyton Hewitt in Melbourne was brutal and majestic. Federer hits the ball with such balance and grace and yet the results are savage. He does it without grunting like a demented vulture, the way a number of women players do. A woman in England has been served a noise abatement notice because of her vocal lovemaking. Someone should call noise control the next time Maria Sharapova ruins a tennis tournament with their screeching.
