KEY POINTS:
By now even the most dogged believers must have given up hope. There will be no last hurrah. The All Blacks are going to have to do the job in France without Tana Umaga.
When he bowed out of international rugby at the end of 2005, many refused
to take him at his word. The theory went that Umaga was the rugby equivalent of the US Navy's most famous battleship, USS Missouri, which was re-activated after almost 30 years in mothballs when Ronald Reagan set out to win the arms race with the USSR once and for all.
Having seen Tana Umaga up close while working with him on his autobiography, I find it hard to believe that the dramatic comeback theory was ever entertained. As various boycotted media organisations have discovered to their cost, once he makes up his mind, that's that.
We're all products of our upbringings, Umaga more than most. The Wellington suburb of Wainuiomata in which he grew up and where his family still lives is unusual in two respects. It's self-contained - once over the crest of the hill, the capital is out of sight and, one senses, largely out of mind.
Secondly, it was the final destination for two waves of immigrants who came south in search of a better life for their children: Ngati Porou and Pacific Islanders, particularly Samoans.
The combination of migration and geography created a tightly-knit community in which organised religion was the dominant social and cultural force and Maori and Pacific Islanders became closely integrated. When they weren't praising the Lord, they played football.
Sports broadcaster and community leader Ken Laban, a lifelong Wainuiomata resident, believes the conveyor belt of talent begins with a long-established whanau touch football competition organised by the Wainuiomata Marae in which all teams have to include two of the following: an under-12, an over-40, and a woman.
The effect was, and still is, that three generations of a family could play together and youngsters could play with and against grown-ups, some of whom are prominent athletes.
If you're good enough, you're old enough - providing you're tough enough. Laban, who coached Umaga in the Wainuiomata Premiers that won rugby league's Lion Red Cup in 1992, says: "The environment is tough and as a result the kids who come out of it are tough. [Tana] was being exposed to that environment and level of competition at 16 when a lot of his peer group were behind the bike-sheds sucking lollipops or whatever."
As a dreadlocked Polynesian who played with flair and freedom, Umaga's accession to the All Black captaincy could be seen as symbolising the superseding of the old New Zealand - rural, taciturn, self-effacing, Pakeha - by the new - urban, self-expressive, flamboyant, multicultural.
In fact, Umaga's success in the role and his ability to galvanise the public behind the All Blacks lay in his ability to bridge this divide.
Appearances aside, Umaga possessed the qualities and attributes that New Zealanders have associated with the All Blacks for 100 years - stoicism, resilience, ruthlessness in pursuit of victory, graciousness when victory has been achieved - and which were personified by old New Zealand's rugby icon, Colin Meads.
This is Meads, in his 1974 autobiography, outlining his playing philosophy: "I'm no bloody angel. If I can gain the advantage by a bit of gamesmanship, I'll be the first to do it. You play this game on a manly basis and you expect the opposition to try for the same sort of advantage."
This is Umaga doing likewise: "I aimed to let an opponent know I was out there and get into his mind so that next time he'd have a look to see if I was coming. I'd body-check him on the way through or give him a little reminder that I was around so he knew that if he didn't have his wits about him, he could get hit and hit hard. That's the gamesmanship of rugby."
While history will be the judge of Umaga's place in the game, it's already evident that he's had a profound influence on the current generation of Wellington and All Black players, especially the Polynesians. But perhaps the greatest legacy of this proud first-generation Kiwi, who handled his country's most demanding sporting assignment with grace and dignity, is to serve as a rebuke to those who wilfully ignore the multicultural reality of contemporary New Zealand.
