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Champion Wallaby fullback Israel Folau looks bored because he’s being ignored.
He’s not injured, but he’s just a shadow of the devastating and dynamic Folau of three years ago.
The 27-year-old has always been a freakish try-scorer and attacking unit, by far the best rugby league convert, even though it was via the AFL.
It’s timely to turn the clock back to when the unknown 17-year-old Israel Folau took the rugby league world literally by storm.
He started the 2007 season on the wing as the youngest to represent the Melbourne Storm, scoring a debut match-winning try against the Wests-Tigers for an 18-16 win.
The perfect start, and it only got better.
Folau played every game that season, the only Storm player to do so, scoring 21 tries from 25 games to share the NRL try-scoring honours with the experienced Cowboy Matt Bowen.
And in the process Folau not only broke the previous debut season record of 19 tries set by Billy Slater in 2003, but when Justin Hodges was injured Folau made his Test debut at 18 years and 194 days, breaking Brad Fittler’s youngest Kangaroo record of 18 years and 264 days.
Folau scored two tries on Test debut in the Kangaroo’s record 58-0 hammering of the Kiwis. Needless to say Israel Folau won the Dally M Rookie of the Year award.
He was also awarded the Australian Young Performer of the Year, and the International Newcomer of the Year award – almost a full house.
In 2008, Folau moved into the centres, scored 15 tries from 25 games, and won the Dally M Centre of the year.
In his four years of rugby league – two at the Storm, and two with the Broncos – plus State of Origin for Queensland and Test matches, Folau had no trouble finding the try line.
He scored 70 tries from 87 NRL games, five tries from as many Origin appearances, and six tries for the Kangaroos in eight games.
All up in four rugby league seasons from 2007 to 2010 he scored 84 tries from 104 games – simply brilliant.
And he started off in the same rich vein when he switched to rugby in 2013 with the Waratahs and played his first Test the same year, scoring a double on debut against the British and Irish Lions.
He finished the year with 10 Test tries to equal Lote Tuqiri’s Test debut year record.
The stellar year was 2014 with the Waratahs, winning their first Super Rugby title in 19 years of trying.
This was the year Michael Cheika clicked as a representative coach, Folau and Kurtley Beale clicked, and Bernard Foley’s trusty boot did the rest.
The Waratahs scored the most points (481), had the least points score against them (272), with the highest differential of plus-209.
Folau scored the most tries in the tournament with 12, sharing the honour with the Crusaders Nemani Nadolo, while Beale scored eight.
Foley was the icing on the cake topping the points scorers with 252.
Today, Folau holds the Waratahs try-scoring record with 36 from 60 games, ahead of Tuqiri’s 29 from 89, Lachie Turner’s 25 from 71, and Matt Burke’s 24 from 78.
It’s Folau and daylight.
He scored 17 tries in his first two Wallaby seasons, but only three in total from last year, and this year.
And that’s proving very costly to the Wallabies, and it’s not Folau’s fault.
It’s either Michael Cheika has tactically moved away from Folau as a striker, or the current backline isn’t good enough to include Folau – there’s no Kurtley Beale on show.
Samu Kerevi looms as a likely prospect if he was inside centre, with Folau at 13. But it appears Cheika intends to retain Folau as the custodian.
Whatever the reason, Israel Folau must be kept busy if the Wallabies are to be regular winners, or Folau will go elsewhere.
And that would be a rugby tragedy.
The Broncos are circling, and Folau’s family live in Brisbane.
One thing for sure, if the Broncos eventually win out, they won’t make the same monumental mistake of starving the champion of the ball.
Israel Folau’s future is entirely up to the Wallabies.