Israel Folau leaps high but finds a much smaller man, Heath Grundy of the Swans, outdoing his effort.

Israel Folau leaps high but finds a much smaller man, Heath Grundy of the Swans, outdoing his effort. Photo: Getty Images

ISRAEL Folau's gigantic pay packet consists of an honorarium for playing and a poultice for promotion. Every time he plays and scarcely gets a touch, the ratio changes: less for what he does, more for who he is.

That way, it is justified.

But the risk is that the day will come when the parts don't add up to the whole. The risk is that Folau will become, instead of a star in either code, a laughing stock in both. To AFL fans, it will prove rugby league is inferior. To leaguies, it will prove AFL is byzantine. Either way, it will entrench them in their positions, and in their enclaves.

Of course, Folau might have dragged a few league enthusiasts along with him in the meantime. They won't necessarily have abandoned their code, but adopted an extra. This was evident in Sydney's newspapers last week. It was less evident at the Olympic stadium on Saturday night.

But sooner rather than later, Folau must show that he can play his way as well as pay his way. Otherwise, the whole exercise stands to turn sour.

This is not to death-ride Folau, from all accounts an earnest and likeable young man who has toiled hard to learn this foreign and maddening game, and who has been endlessly and patiently available to media, even after his many disappointing afternoons.

Ultimately, it is not how he presents to the media that will matter, but how he presents when the ball is fizzing down the ground towards him in the hands of a Greater Western Sydney midfielder, and bodies are peeling off in all directions.

On admittedly sketchy evidence so far, Folau still is lost in AFL. He has little instinct for the game. It appears to wash over and around him, stranding him always half a kick out of place. Hack footballers everywhere know the feeling. I do.

Jack Dyer's basic appreciation of a natural footballer is that he doesn't go where the ball ain't. Until Folau can be where the ball is, not even his league tackling skills are useful. He is not tall enough to play in the ruck, or savvy enough to play on the forward line, and seemingly not ready for a run-with role. It makes him a limited footballer. He looks less game-ready than Karmichael Hunt at this time last year.

This is hasty judgment. On radio yesterday, Tim Watson ruefully recalled son Jobe's experience. He was AFL from birth, and groomed in the elite system, and in his first game had one handball. Now he is Essendon's captain.

The late Jim Stynes was even more of a project player than Folau. From another code and country, he took three years to learn to play, and in the third of those was all but wiped by Melbourne; so history is shaped.

There was one big difference. In that watershed season, playing for Prahran, Stynes had to beg the club to advance him enough money to buy a beat-up buzz box. I don't know what Folau gets around in; best ask his chauffeur. Stynes did it for the adventure. Folau, on his own perhaps too candid admission, for the money.

In the Irish experiment, the AFL was looking for players. In the Hunt/Folau experiment, it is looking for fans. When Folau was all that GWS had to sell, even his bad news was good. Now that we have an appealing first impression of the Giants, and can form a picture of the exciting team they might become, Folau's travail stands to become a distraction.