Rugby: Malakai Fekitoa's big decision

For Malakai Fekitoa, there is a big decision to be made in the next month or so. He's at the crossroads many other good players have reached: the place where he has to ask what really matters to him and whether he has the depth of character to convert adversity into a powerful and galvanising fuel or let it break him.

He's reached this place after not being included in the All Blacks squad to play the British & Irish Lions. An All Blacks regular since 2014, there was no room for him this time round.

Ngani Laumape has charged past him as a bruising, direct No 12. Sonny Bill Williams has returned to somewhere near his unpredictable best and with Ryan Crotty and Anton Lienert-Brown both so accurate, so reliable and so composed in the test arena, they were the men the selectors saw as their must-have midfield group.

And not only has Fekitoa not made the 33, but the fact Crusaders centre Jack Goodhue has been called in as injury cover for Ryan Crotty suggests the Highlander has slipped quite some way down the pecking order.

The decision he has to make now is to whether extend his contract in New Zealand beyond this year, or decide to take one of the inevitable major offers that will come his way from offshore clubs.

No doubt it will be tempting for him to cut and run. To take rejection hard and scurry off into the arms of a more willing and appreciative suitor.

Plenty of players have gone down this path in the past - made a lot of cash in doing so, but privately, most admit they regret it.

The more emotionally rewarding path is to stay and at just 25, there is ample time for Fekitoa to absorb the hurt, reshape his game and find the depth of character to prove himself all over again.

Most great All Blacks have had to battle to get there. It doesn't come easy and Fekitoa can see his current situation as terminal or motivating.

To choose that second path, the hard part for Fekitoa will be reconciling the truth. He has to accept that the decision to drop him from the All Blacks was fair. He hasn't played well enough to be included and he hasn't played as well as the others who have made it.

Such a sensation in 2014 when he shifted from the Blues to the Highlanders, Fekitoa hasn't pushed on since.

In that coming of age year, he was dynamic with and without the ball. He made mistakes, but typically he ended most games having made a seriously positive contribution.

There was so much power in his ball carrying, such electric footwork and clear thinking. He seamlessly went from playing centre to second-five for the All Blacks and his versatility gave him a deeper offering.

But Fekitoa's progress has stalled. Last year he was erratic. His game seemed to be bedevilled with doubt.

The spontaneous decisions dried up and the All Blacks selectors described him as wooden - in danger of tying himself in knots as he tried to over think his options.

They stuck by him, though. He was rested during the second half of the Rugby Championship - the belief being that time away from the game would help him refresh mentally and come back stronger, clearer.

There was some uplift from that strategy when Fekitoa produced more direct and powerful performances on the end of year tour.

It turned out to be more a dead cat bounce, though as he's been mostly quiet for the Highlanders this year and the All Blacks selectors had to make a big decision.

"When you look at the breakdown of the squad we have picked Sonny and Ngani as our two specialist 12s," said All Blacks coach Steve Hansen.

"Crotts can play both as can Anton so we felt that if we were to lose a midfield player we'd probably be short of a centre - an out and out centre. When we looked at Mala and then we looked at young Jack Goodhue then Jack probably got the nod because of his ability to put people into space. "Especially in those two-on-one situations, he's very accurate for a young player and his skill-set is just that little bit higher than Mala's.

"Again it was a tough decision but we don't think we have seen the end of Mala. He will go away, he's a resilient young man and he will go away and work hard."