Peter Jackson: Dragons big dilemma – when to cash in on Toby

They say Toby Faletau is not for sale, that those across the border and across the Channel eager to buy him are wasting their time. Newport Gwent Dragons have rejected a fee of £100,000 from an English club for the transfer of their star asset at the end of the season, 12 months before his contract runs out.
“Toby’s not for sale,” says chairman Martyn Hazell. “If we were to let him go, then what would be the point of trying to do anything?  The fans would go bananas.   He’s staying with us for the length of his contract and, we hope, beyond.”
Anyone misguided enough to think the Dragons may be a soft touch when it comes to selling what’s left of the family silver will soon be put right. Every player, of course, has his price, as the Welsh Rugby Union discovered to their cost when they paid Leeds Rugby League club £750,000 for Iestyn Harris, equalling the amount Newcastle paid Wigan for Va’aiga Tuigamala during the early days of professionalism in 1997.
An offer of £500,000 for Faletau would revive a largely moribund transfer market and force the Dragons to consider their options, not that anyone is likely to splash out that much even for a 22-year-old with a big future. His immediate future will be one of the first serious tests for the newly-formed Professional Game Board, the new body set up by the WRU and the regions.
What to do with Toby raises a dilemma for the Dragons and Welsh rugby as a whole. It goes beyond deciding whether to sell while they can still demand compensation for the final year of his contract.    The real issue is over what sort of return they can expect in terms of game-time from an automatic member of the Wales team.
Since his debut eighteen months ago, Faletau has played 24 matches for the Dragons and 21 for Wales.  In a fortnight’s time, he will be off on Six Nations duty and not back for two months, shortly before Easter at the end of March.
Barring any calamitous loss of form or injury, Faletau will by then have been inked in for the Lions tour.  Once it is made official in April, the Dragons will then be asked to rest their No. 8, thereby ensuring he is refreshed and injury-free for his initiation as a Lion.
The Dragons will be compensated, as will ever other employer of those borrowed for the six-week mission in Australia. Back at Rodney Parade, they will be left to wonder what the trip will take out of him, aware, no doubt, of what the history book has to say on the subject.
And then, almost before they know it, the advent of November and the annual four Tests will take Faletau out of their orbit for another six weeks.  The probability is that he will play as often for his country as he will for his region because Wales have loaded their season with more capped matches than any of the other home countries.
Sometime over the next nine months, in the face of a lengthening list of offers for Faletau, the Dragons will have to make a hard-headed decision. Do they stick to their guns in rejecting all approaches until the end of the player’s contract in May 2014 and then risk watching him walk away to double or treble his money?
Or do they recognise the inevitability and get some money for him while they can?  The longer they leave it, the less they are likely to get. A big Six Nations would guarantee a steep appreciation in Faletau’s market value and if a club like Toulon want him badly enough, then any offer north of £250,000 would be hard to ignore.
It becomes harder still when the various absences on international duty are taken into account.