Analysis with Squidge Rugby

A greatest XV. No.2 The Hooker

Rugby has changed more over the last fifteen years than in any other similar period of time, yet in among attack patterns and defence structures, I’m not sure anything has shifted as clearly as the position of hooker. While everyone else on the field has merely altered their role, the modern-day hooker is moving further and further away from the classical image of a balding fubsy fella with a soft spot for a bit of the ol’ rough stuff. 

This breed still exists. Ken Owens, Rory Best and Leonardo Ghiraldini  proudly championed it across the tier one nations at last year’s World Cup, with Jaba Bregvadze perhaps the oldest-school of the lot for Georgia. The hooker has always been the middle ground between the back-row forward and the prop, but these days, with those notable exceptions aside, the top-flight scale leans far more heavily towards numbers six, seven, and eight.

As such, when discussing the best hookers of the modern era, concessions need to be made. Owens and Best each have excellent hands, and Ghiraldini no doubt still proudly remembers the day he beat Scotland winger Sean Lamont in a footrace, but they need these attributes to just hold water in the modern game. Even back in the 2011 World Cup, seeing a hooker just able to get away a pass was a novelty, now each player on a Test team is expected to throw intricate balls under huge amounts of pressure. The version of rugby Mario Ledesma, Steve Thompson, and John Smit, for instance, played was simply different.

Ledesma, however, stands out as the kingpin of the hard-nosed crowd. The epitome of an Argentine pack who were so hard you could drop an oil tanker on their heads and not one would flinch, yet Ledesma did more than scare off nearby backs. Ledesma carried. Ledesma tackled. Ledesma rarely passed, but if you dropped one, good god would Ledesma scrummage. He probably gets uncomfortable in any space more open than a bathroom, but was he good in the tight. The cornerstone of a Pumas’ side that came out of nowhere to finish third in the 2007 World Cup, and while his nation have yet to achieve similar success under him as a coach, you can guarantee he’s made sure they all know exactly where they went wrong.

This style is in sharp contrast to the two most prominent faces of the Hollywood Hooker movement. Schalk Brits was as good as frozen out of international rugby for most his career for essentially being too absurdly skilful a player, after addressing his initial issues at scrum and lineout very early on in his time with Saracens. It wasn’t until under Rassie Erasmus that he received his swansong, captaining the Springboks against Namibia on their way to the Rugby World Cup title last year. The more popular face of the revolution has been the All Blacks’ Dane Coles. As skilful  as a centre and with a ridiculous amount of pace for his position, Coles’ sheer ability allowed New Zealand to pioneer a new attacking structure using a hooker on the wing, which has since informed how virtually every top-flight team plays. Japan’s Shota Horie also deserves a mention, perhaps the only hooker to ever kick the ball in three different World Cups.

A number of players exist in the transition – Argentina’s recently-retired Agustin Creevy was a huge hitter with a nice offload, and Stephen Moore adapted his game as he went on, but none so clearly as the two men at the head of my list. All Blacks hero Keven Mealamu, and underrated Springbok Bismarck du Plessis. Mealamu turned himself from an old-school front rower into the most modern player imaginable. Firstly, by fashioning himself into a jack of all trades who was as good a linkman as a set-piece operator as a carrier as a breakdown specialist. But secondly, Mealamu became that most modern of things: the archetypal impact man. He holds the record for most appearances off the bench in Test rugby with 55, and added something in every single one, no matter how few minutes he played.

Du Plessis, however, was so effective a player the Springboks moved captain and world-class hooker himself, Smit,  across to tighthead, a move that tells you everything about both players. Bismarck du Plessis played hard. He gave you no inches, no concessions, and no mercy. He tackled hard and ran harder, yet as the years went on and the role of the hooker changed, also adapted his game, developed a pass and a vision. Over the course of their careers, Mealamu and du Plessis’ mutual position changed more than perhaps any other, and yet, I’d feel quite safe to say, you could drop them into any era of rugby, and the pair of them would adapt and thrive. Not bad for fubsy fellas.

This extract was taken from issue 10 of Rugby.
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