Paul Lewis: Tana makes his mark as a leader

There was a moment in the third test against the Lions that revealed, I think, the greatest advance the All Blacks have made in the last nine months. Captain Tana Umaga took out a charging Lions lock, Donncha O'Callaghan (now also known as Donncha Pass...), who ignored the overlap outside him and went for the All Black line.

Umaga dragged him down, locked his arms around the errant Irishman and slowed down the ball while the All Black defence scrambled back into something resembling shape. The referee saw the offence as a professional foul - among a host of things he got wrong, this one was right - and sent Umaga to the sin bin for 10 minutes.

Umaga's face was thunderous. But not because of the referee. As he left the field, he removed his mouthguard and spat a few choice words at his colleagues. In that moment, it was possible to see the transformation of Tana Umaga, skipper, into an All Black captain of some standing.

His face, his words (whatever they were) and his body language showed his displeasure. How had his team-mates put him in that situation? Who wasn't doing his job? Focus, boys, focus. Clean up your act or we'll be having a little conversation and you won't be doing any of the talking... all of this and more was conveyed in that few seconds of Anglo-Saxon language and body language as Umaga left the field. This was a rugby CEO reviewing his troops and finding them wanting.

Famously, the All Blacks scored two tries while he was off the field and, after the series, Umaga was mentioned as being in the same league of All Black captaincy as Sean Fitzpatrick and Wayne Shelford. Maybe, but I'd like to wait a little longer before putting him in that company - certainly until after the Tri Nations and the Grand Slam tour... maybe even as far as the 2007 World Cup for which Umaga is now being set.

Only a few months ago, such a scenario seemed far-fetched. The captain appeared to be feeling his age and at times looked as though he was held together by bits of string and chewing gum. When the All Blacks departed on the tour of Europe at the end of last year, one of the express priorities was to build depth at centre.

The All Blacks had Umaga and a bit of a gap. Well, chasm, really. So off on tour went Conrad Smith and Casey Laulala and, since then, the All Black management has experimented with Mils Muliaina at centre and have mentioned Ma'a Nonu as Umaga's eventual successor at No 13. They even publicly toyed with the idea that key All Blacks (but we knew they were talking about Tana) would be rested for the Tri Nations before the man himself made it known to the All Black camp that he was about as likely to sit out the Tri Nations as Harry Potter was to seek an audience with the Pope.

In the midst of all this has come a resurgence in Umaga's form - his 40m times in training are allegedly the fastest he's ever produced - and he was demonstrably the All Black player of the series against the Lions.

Against all this is the fact that the Lions were simply a poor side, hence the hesitation to raise Umaga to the higher order of All Black captains just yet. He was undeniably aided by the worst piece of opposition-baiting ever seen in rugby - the Brian O'Driscoll spear tackle business - which served only to bring the All Blacks and Umaga closer together.

Tougher tasks await: Australia and defending Tri Nations champions South Africa plus the Grand Slam, including a mouth-watering reprise of Umaga-O'Driscoll when the All Blacks take on Ireland at the end of the year.

Ironically, Umaga's form and captaincy have tended to work against the very thing for which the All Black management were trying to prepare: more depth. Umaga's insistence on playing has seen them mothball their cotton-wool plans for the captain and for alternatives at centre during the Tri Nations.

If Nonu is the answer, he'll have to show it while playing centre for Wellington in the NPC - although it is still not impossible that he or Muliaina will get a chance at some stage during the Tri Nations. Smith has the advantage of being in the current Tri Nations squad but it seems unlikely that the All Blacks would want to pair him and Aaron Mauger in midfield, in spite of their fine distribution skills. They are both slimline centres and Umaga's vision and molecule-altering tackles on defence remain a powerful weapon.

And then there's the captaincy. Just a few months ago, we were all nodding our heads up and down when faced with the prospect that Richie McCaw, the captain-in-waiting, would take the helm for a game or three.

Doesn't look quite so desirable now, does it? Even the inestimable McCaw, who will surely be an All Black captain of note, can't compete with the impact of Umaga right now.


- HERALD ON SUNDAY