KEY POINTS:
Tana Umaga has been searching for mementos from his league days so a friend rang the Herald on the former All Black captain's behalf.
The particular photograph - from the 1992 Lion Red Cup final between Wainuiomata and Northcote at Carlaw Park - was easy to locate once a key fact had been established.
Umaga had been identified in this paper as the other Wainui wing, Una Taufa. This historic picture of one of the most famous faces in rugby had lain in Taufa's file for all those years.
It would be nice to claim no knowledge about who had mis-identified Umaga, which is all I would like to say about that.
How could you get that face wrong, even if it was only almost-famous and lacked the trademark dreads on top?
From a male perspective, the Umaga dial has never appeared as a handsome one, yet I know at least one woman who swoons at the mere mention of his name.
The short-back-and-sides brigade may even have bristled, initially, at a footballer who looked like a rag doll having a bad-hair day. But in this country, at least, Umaga has won everybody over on every count.
This most famous character, with a look that is absolutely impossible to miss, retired as a top-level player on Saturday afternoon, 62 minutes into Wellington's easy win over Manawatu.
He's off to France for a princely sum to work as the director of rugby for Toulon, and in that classically downmarket way we pay tribute to sports heroes in this country, Wellington have named aisle 13 at the Cake Tin after him. God knows what Richie McCaw will get when he goes - maybe the tuck shop.
In the past four decades, New Zealand has had as centres the mercurial Grahame Thorne, who came from nowhere, and a few more who have got absolutely nowhere.
But in the main the position has been filled by a remarkable dynasty of Bruce Robertson, Joe Stanley, Frank Bunce and Umaga. That's 190 tests, and hardly a dud among them.
Class is an indefinable thing, but you just don't forget certain matters and they aren't always the most obvious. I recall watching Robertson playing a club centenary game at Bombay, south of Auckland, in 1988. He was 36, seven years past his last test.
A very good representative player of the day was heading for a try when this lean blond streaked out of the past, flipped him to the ground and casually emerged with the ball. Just never forgotten that.
To watch Robertson play rugby was to watch David Gower swish one of his gloriously lazy cover drives, or Trevor Brooking patrol a soccer midfield. Grace.
Which was not the uncompromising Umaga's game.
But if you had to find a best of the best among that quartet of centres, Umaga would be your man because, apart from the elegance of Robertson, he equalled the best attributes of the others and surpassed them elsewhere.
Most significantly, he transformed the standards of the position, adding loose-forward qualities to the centre's game as rugby turned itself into a relentless scrap for possession.
Umaga was a man of limited public words who clearly knew what he valued in life, and doggedly stuck to it.
His career wasn't without contradictions. He was honoured for gallantry in aiding a Welsh foe, yet vilified for an act against the Lions.
Dignity was a calling card, yet he swiped an errant team-mate in public with a handbag.
An ultimate modern-day professional, he was unfortunate enough to be caught on amateur video wobbling harmlessly and worse for wear across Cathedral Square in Christchurch.
This 2000 incident revealed the tough core that helped turn Umaga into one of the greatest All Blacks.
After a furious newsroom debate, TV3 decided to show Umaga's wobbly walk and he has never forgiven it (some TV3 people have sympathy with Umaga's position).
No matter what the occasion, including personal celebration, if Umaga can blot TV3 out, they are well blotted. TV3 employees can be greeted in the street, but the moment they don TV3 status they are persona non grata. This includes a cameraman who is a friend of Umaga's from childhood.
Yes, the obligatory book is on the way. But until now he has shown a similar doggedness in protecting the privacy of his family and, it might be suggested, in screening the public from getting much more than a glimpse of the real man, who is by accounts dedicated to his family and community.
Yet a footballer who excludes the intrusive has been a major figure in inclusiveness.
He became the first Samoan captain of the All Blacks with a comforting ease, such was his status.
This is a personal observation, but I also believe he has done much to obliterate the annoying cliche that Polynesian footballers are front-foot bullies who lack heart when the going gets tough.
As an interesting sideline, the oriental look to his eyes has even moved enthusiastic Asians to see "a touch of yellow" in an All Black captain. Apparently Umaga does not know of any Asian lineage, but does not dismiss the notion either.
As he conducted his farewell on Saturday and made a stand opposing violence against children, you suddenly wondered if we had fully realised what a remarkable rugby character has been in our midst.
For mine, he was at his best as a left wing with a roving commission. But centre cemented the Umaga name after - in typical fashion - he refused to budge about budging because he believed he lacked an international winger's pace.
The wind went out of Umaga's sails the moment he decided to quit international rugby after the 2005 season. But his ship will always sail on. World Cup triumphs have eluded him and you can hunt down a few imperfections. But history will look with increasing awe on Tana Umaga, an enigmatic sporting warrior with that touch of class.
