As a follow-up to my earlier post: I think we have to judge all our locks by their tight work plus their technical and unit ability.
The next thing is how they contribute to the balance in a 23. We often talk about balance in a backline or even a back row, but hardly ever in a second row.
Fair dinkum, some folks talk as though there should be three ball-running blindside flankers in every run-on team, though I agree that there is a case for a Fardy type to be on the bench to cover lock and 6.
It is easier to talk about locks if you have a back row lineout guy who can call the lineouts, but if Mowen is not there who is your lineout caller?
If Mowen is not available, or benched, there is no use saying that Simmons shouldn't be running on because he is one of the few Wallabies' second rowers who calls the lineouts for his Super team.
People say that Pyle does the calling for the Rebels and should always be in the squad—and boy, can he run with the ball and score a try—but how is he in the departments of: being a hard bastard in tight work, bending the line, and making dominant tackles?
And how good is he at lineout calling anyway, and how good is any lineout caller in any Oz Super team for that matter? This was was one reason I liked Sharpie being involved with the Wobs this year: if he didn't know, nobody would.
Lineout calling is one thing and the ability to be able to help the THP at scrum time is another. You have to have one tighhead-lock-who-makes-a-difference-at-scrum-time on the park for an hour.
It is not enough to look at who has packed on the right hand of the scrum for their Super team and tick a box for them: you have to be able to assess their ability in the role, after all, even Nathan Sharpe packed down on the right-hand side for the Wallabies every now and then, and he was a powder puff TH lock.
In my eyes only Skelton (for the future) and Timani stand out in that area in Oz. We can ill-afford to lose Timani overseas especially since the new scrummaging procedure has disadvantaged the Wobs, as I foretold it would—not that this was rocket science.
As one who saw Skelton drop the ball a lot at Tahs' lineout training before most folks had heard of him, he has to prove to me that he has the ability to take the ordinary ball consistently at the front, and also the difficult ball. He also has to prove that he can play flat out for 60 minutes every week in Super Rugby.
And there haven't been a lot coming through schoolboys either who are hard bastard tall timber with a bit of meat of their bones, plus the joy of contact and knocking people over—lots of athletic stringbeans though. I hope that Colts is picking up some late bloomers, as they do in most positions.
Lastly, we come to how athletic a guy is. Now some folks will think of how he can score 50 metre tries and link with the backs. No, that should came after last in test rugby.
By athletic I mean: how good is the lock at getting into position to catch the restart kick, how good his footwork (especially backwards) when running up and down the lineout line to jump or lift, how good at catching the difficult lineout ball and being able to deflect it to the scrummie if he can't catch it, how good at moving sideways to plug a hole around the ruck, how good at bouncing back on his feet so that his team has 15 players for longer etc etc.
Of course, such athletic players who do those things well, often have the ability to do the flashy stuff also, and good on them if they do, but we should look more at tight-five athleticism and not so much at skills that are easy on the eye.
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