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Back on December 4 last year I wrote that signing Israel Folau was a bad call. And with every good reason, at the time.
He had played for the Broncos in 2011, Greater Western Sydney in 2012 and was ready to play his third different code in as many years with the Waratahs in 2013.
I asked if he had any integrity, any loyalty, any sense of belonging? Or was he just chasing the big buck?
I also mentioned three previous league signings – Mat Rogers (2002), Wendell Sailor (2002), and Lote Tuqiri (2003) – which were big news at the time as the first retaliation to the 13-man code since rugby turned pro in 1996.
Tuqiri was the only decent buy, there were no regrets when Sailor and Rogers returned to league.
That’s the background.
In the interim, Israel Folau has proved me dead-set wrong, and nobody is more delighted than I am.
While I’m happy to admit my original mistake, I was also the first to predict Folau would be a Wallaby and play an important role in the Lions series, once I’d seen him play.
And was howled down by a battalion of Roarers.
So let’s get the equation right.
Folau is a class act, and he’s getting better every game, as the Kings found out last weekend when the fullback cut them to ribbons in yet another man-of-the-match performance.
Folau has a rugby instinct, which Rogers, Sailor, Tuqiri, and Tamana Tahu never had. Both codes have vastly different defensive and attacking patterns, Folau is far more advanced after just 10 games than the other four were in their entire rugby careers.
They all had speed, but only Folau of the five knows where to be at the right time and place, and he’s only been playing rugby for “five minutes”.
Instinct is like ball sense, you have either got it, or you haven’t.
Folau has instinct to burn and once he realises rugby has a helluva lot more to offer than league, he will feel a lot more comfortable.
Best summed up by the old, but true, saying – play rugby and see the world.
League’s world is limited to New Zealand and England, as the only three nations who can play the game.
Folau has played both codes in New Zealand, but has now played rugby in South Africa for the first of many times, and has Argentina, England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and France to look forward to, just for starters.
And he will prove to be by far the best league buy.
But there were 17 Wallabies who proved to be good buys for league since World War 2.
Ken Kearney and Rex Mossop in the 50s, Arthur Summons, Mike Cleary, Jimmy Lisle, Dick Thornett, Kevin Ryan, and Bob Honan in the 60s, Phil Hawthorne, John Brass, Stephen Knight, Geoff Richardson, and Ray Price in the 70s, Michael O’Connor in the 80s, Ricky Stuart, and Scott Gourley in the 90s, and Andrew Walker in 2000.
Four of them became Kangaroo captains – Kearney, Summons, Hawthorne, and Brass.
It’s impossible to think any Wallaby would ever again switch to league.
But Israel Folau may yet open the doors for the likes of Greg Inglis, Billy Slater, Johnathan Thurston, Cooper Cronk, or Nathan Merritt to switch.
And not one of those five would be a bad call.