Peter Bills: Talking rugby

Jerry Collins is 28 years old today. It seems absurdly young to pen an obituary of an outstanding career.

After all, Richie McCaw will reach the same milestone on New Year’s Eve and he remains in a class of his own in world rugby.

But to see Collins, a great All Black, looking ponderous and plodding his way through a French Top 14 Championship match at Montauban last Friday night was to witness the tragic decline of a once great talent. It was horrible to see it.

The former Hurricanes tough man may be earning a king’s ransom - reputed to be between €350,000 and €400,000 a season at Toulon. But right now, money seems the only consolation Jerry Collins has left. He certainly doesn’t look as though he’s enjoying his rugby, he shows no spark whatever and he appears a pale, pathetic imitation of the once dynamic, fearsome forward upon whom some outstanding All Black teams relied.

The whisper when Collins quit New Zealand was that his best days were behind him, he’d given too much in the All Blacks’ cause. The critics said he hadn’t much left in the tank. The saddest thing conclusion you had to draw after Collins’s Toulon had suffered another humiliation, a 42-20 thrashing by the unfancied Montauban, was that the critics had been right all along.

You couldn’t fault Jerry Collins’ determination to keep going, to keep trying. Midway through the second half, with Montauban a mile ahead at 42-3, Collins took a tap penalty and hammered away into the heart of the opposition defence. Perhaps it was a raging against the dying of the light but whatever it was, it was a rare, isolated flash of the old Collins. Alas, it was only the briefest of reminders of the kind of powerful forays which were once his trademark, storming runs that lit up entire matches and galvanised his team-mates.

There is precious little evidence that Jerry Collins is proving any sort of inspiration to struggling Toulon. Beaten at home the previous week by Castres, Toulon subsided quietly and without a fight to Montauban, their sixth defeat in nine Top 14 games. Only Collins’ fellow back row man, South African international Joe van Niekerk, stood out. The rest were hardly to be seen.

Collins needed 36 minutes to make his first real run, and it covered little more than 10 metres. Worse still, he became isolated and turned over possession. His pace and power seems to have vanished, his threat extinguished. Jerry Collins looks passive, something most of us who have watched international rugby for years never thought we’d even think let accuse the New Zealander of being. Far, far too often, he hung off the side of rucks and mauls, head bent, watching. Too often, he took the ball standing still. And when Montauban attacked, he was only capable of hauling down someone in immediate proximity. He seemed unable to get out wide and snuff out attacks. When Toulon scored their second try, Collins was way too slow to save the score, even though he seemed close by. That spring in his murderous step which carried him into the fray and through all but the securest of tackles, had gone. In its stead, was a slow, ponderous step.

Jerry Collins finds himself in the midst of a French nightmare. Victor Matfield and Anton Oliver, two experienced fellow forwards who could have helped him make a huge difference at the club this season, took one look and booked their flights out. Both rejected a fortune to stay, Matfield around €500,000 and Oliver a sum around €300,000. Both knew something about the club, Collins clearly didn’t.

The President, Mourad Boudjallel, a self made multi millionaire, wants trophies on the wall of famous players. He has the money and buys whom he wants. He’s a business professional but unfortunately, he doesn’t know anything about how to run a rugby club professionally. One wonders how much longer coach Tana Umaga is likely to survive in an increasingly desperate atmosphere.

Umaga’s team was hopeless against Montauban. Twice, in one four minute spell, they kicked full penalties towards touch and missed on each occasion. They were asleep for their opponents’ first try, they turned over possession constantly and they had no structure or belief whatever.

They’ve bought badly and have ended up with a lot of has beens or nearly men. In their 100th year, this shambles is a sad indictment of a club suddenly flushed with cash by the arrival of a non-rugby businessman who is obsessed with signing star names, most from the past.

Apart from all that, the sun is shining brightly beside the Mediterranean.