Only last year, Steve Hansen sidled up and asked for a minute. Now tell me, he said, with the tone he might have used in his days on the police force, who told you about Tana retiring, who gave you that info?
Not bad, I acknowledged, before returning serve and asking his theories. He had a pretty good idea, Hansen said, before suggesting one name I was able to emphatically deny as the source of that story.
Umaga's retirement came after a glorious career of 74 tests when he became the first Pacific Islander to captain the All Blacks in tests and played with a distinctively effervescent power which troubled all his rivals.
We conversed regularly in the 2011 World Cup to compile his columns and not once, did Umaga question me about the path of that retirement story six years before. Not that he has mellowed.
He brought fire to his Counties coaching when he berated the referees and there were episodes in his earlier years when his late night emotions could have been better controlled.
