Peter Jackson: How Toby almost fell into grasp of England

It won’t do them any good now but England will be kicking themselves for allowing Wales to take Toby Faletau from under their noses. In the course of finding his way to Newport via the South Pacific and the West County, it would be stretching a point to claim that the Tongan was the one who got away. That rather implies that he found an escape route, completely unnecessary given that his potential English employers simply let him go – free, gratis and for nothing.
The revelation comes at the end of a week which began with the Newport Gwent Dragons beating the drum over their coup in keeping one of Britain’s most coveted young players out of French and English clutches.
Faletau’s signing of a new deal designed to keep him at Rodney Parade for three more seasons shows that wonders can be worked on a shoestring budget. The modest young man renowned for bringing a Trappist-like silence to his game has shown that loyalty still counts for something.
At the age of 22, he has already played 26 times for Wales in 26 months. In Sydney last month when the chips were down as never before for the Lions, Faletau marked his debut by winning the turn-over in front of his own posts which effectively finished the Wallabies off.
For the rest of the match, they had nowhere to go but backwards. Faletau’s overdue selection in preference to Jamie Heaslip sent his global stock rising ever higher and left the Dragons wondering how they could hang onto their prize asset beyond the expiry of his current contract next May.
It would all have been very different had England’s recruiting agents spotted Faletau’s potential when he left Wales at the age of 16 to enrol at a rugby-playing school in Bristol.
The story of how Toby the schoolboy left Wales and relocated to the other side of the Severn Bridge comes from another Tongan who left his South Sea island to pursue a professional career in Welsh rugby, Fe’ao Vunipola. Ironically, one of his Welsh-raised sons, Mako, has already been capped by England and his other Welsh-raised son, Billy, will almost certainly follow suit during the coming season.
Vunipola Snr, and Faletau’s father, Kuli, go back a long way. Had they not blazed a trail from the palm trees of their native island to the industrial grime of the same South Wales valley, their sons would never have been capped by England and Wales respectively.
“We played for the same club in Tonga,” Fe’ao said from his home in High Wycombe. “Kuli came home in 1997 after a season in the UK and I asked him what life was like in Wales.
“He said the winters were very cold but that everything else was good. So I followed him over in 1998 on my own to play for Pontypool. Kuli wasn’t far away at Ebbw Vale.
“I came over for the experience, to have a look around, explore places like London and see the sights. I didn’t plan on staying. My late father was always a big influence on me and he said I should stay in the UK for the sake of the children.
“We then took a family decision to stay. The first six years of our lives away from Tonga were spent in Wales. During that time I encouraged the boys in their rugby and I always said, ‘one of you must play for Wales, I want you do that for the opportunities which Wales has given us all’.
“I felt it was a case of loyalty being returned. They made their own decision and I have to support them in everything they do. They have both been living in England now for longer than they were in Wales.
“We were the best of friends with Kuli and his family in Wales. We then moved to Bristol and Toby came to live with us for two years. Like Mako and Billy, he went to Filton College where they had fantastic facilities for rugby.
“Mako was the one who asked if Toby could stay with us. Then Mako won a scholarship to Millfield and after about 18 months he joined the Bristol academy. Not long after that, Toby began training at the same academy.
“There was no doubt that even then he had the potential to go to the top of the game. I always told them at the academy, ‘these boys are so good that the sky’s the limit, just give them the right tools and the right information, keep pushing them and they will go a very long way’.
“I pushed them to sign all the boys. They said they could only afford to sign Mako. It seemed to me that they only had eyes for Mako but it seemed as though they never looked seriously at Toby. If they had signed him and he’d got into the English system, he would have ended up playing for England.
“Toby had a trial but they never signed him up. He went back to Wales and someone tipped the Dragons off about him and they signed him.”
Vunipola Snr, a front row forward at the 1995 World Cup halfway through a 34-Test career with Tonga which spanned 13 years, is a freelance quantity surveyor, lay preacher and rugby coach who specialises in the development of young players at Saracens.
He acknowledges that Faletau, a cousin of the turbo-charged Vunipola brothers, could have cashed in on his soaring status as a Test Lion. “I am not surprised that he has decided to stay with the Dragons,” Vunipola said. “Loyalty is very high on our agenda. I once asked Toby would he have played for England had they given him the opportunity? He said, ‘no, it was always going to be Wales’.
“The offers he would have had from other clubs must have been great. Everyone knows how much money the big French clubs can offer so it’s great for the Dragons and Wales that Toby’s staying.”
New coach Lyn Jones and Dragons chairman Martyn Hazell are to be congratulated – Jones for convincing Faletau that his long-term future as an international will be better served by staying here and Hazell for dismissing bids of £150,000 from English and French clubs.
Faletau would be cheap at three times as much. Does his decision mark a turning of the tide in terms of the best Welsh players staying in Wales?
Leigh Halfpenny is another home-loving bird in his native Gorseinon but £500,000-a-year will take some turning down during the final months of his Blues‘ contract in the New Year.