Wallaby Locks - The Future

[Bowside]

I think second row is easily the weakest area of the wallaby team at the moment.

Simmons and Douglas are holding their spots almost by default. Horwill is a good player but is under a constant injury cloud. Timani is trying to get out of Australia as soon as possible. Fardy and MMM are seen more as 6's.

Simply put, we can not hope to win anything meaningful until we fix our second row problems.

Is Hugh Pyle or Will Skelton our Luke Skywalker? The new hope?

 

[tranquility]

Hugh Pyle needs to get a go.

 

[Sully]

You seriously think second row is our biggest problem?

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[cyclopath]

We really need to look at 3 locks (at least) as a variable combo that can be relied upon.
Horwill seems to be one.
Both Douglas and Simmons have had a fair crack at Test rugby, and thus far been very up and down, with both having good games, or good halves, but also poor ones. One or other could be a third lock, or the forth lock in a wider squad that comes in when needed.
I think Pyle and Skelton will both step forward, and it should be in that order. I will be very disappointed if both don't go on the EOYT.
Skelton is raw, but big, quite skillful and has some mongrel, and will only get better with more conditioning, and more experience and cunning.
Pyle has seemingly been doing all the right things for a while, and I think has more potential in the long term than Simmons or Douglas, based on what I've seen lately.
BUT - we really need an over-arching plan to mould a strong tight-five unit that can scrum and maul effectively (which would obviously involve four props and two hookers). I neither want to see locks who are great jumpers but wet cardboard in the scrum, nor lumps who can only shove but not jump much. We can get away with one of the latter maybe, if we have 6 and 8 options like Higginbotham and Mowen who are good jumpers. We really can't get away with dud scrummaging locks anymore.
EDIT - I agree with Sully that other areas might be more concerning, but I agree that lock is a big issue.

 

[tigerland12]

To summarize, we do not have any second rower in Australia that can be mentioned in the same breathe as Whitelock, Romano, Etzebeth & van der Merwe in terms of physicality.

Simple as that. We are too soft in the tight five.

I rate Hugh Pyle very highly, but is he really going to make much of a difference? He tends to play wider of the ruck, and what we need right now is a pair of big body shifters and scrummaging locks.

Basically, can we clone at 25yr old Dan Vickerman....he is what every international lock should be like.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

Pyle needs to get a run at some point and hopefully Skelton will continue to develop in Super Rugby next year and push for selection. I do agree, however, that lock is a concern for us right now.

 

[thierry dusautoir]

if everyone is fit and healthy we would not being having this conversation. As we would sporting
4. Horwill
5. Fardy
6. Mowen
7. Pocock
8. Higginbotham

with a bench of Hooper, MMM/Pyle and Palu.

As it stands at the moment Kimlin, Pyle, Horwill, Palu, MMM and Higginbotham are all injured so have been unavalaible.

In all honesty i am not worried at all about our back five's depth. Yes we got manhandled by South Afric a but we were missing some of our best big boppers.

Our front row is our major concern however i believe it is more adjusting to the rules than anything else. Our scrum usually maintains a sense of parity untill Moore has to hook, he then loses form>our front row loses form> we then crumble.
I am not saying our fornt row are top scrummagers by any sense, but i do think that the new laws are just adding to the issue

 

[Bowside]

I rate Hugh Pyle very highly, but is he really going to make much of a difference? He tends to play wider of the ruck, and what we need right now is a pair of big body shifters and scrummaging locks.

I think a wider player might be exactly what we need given that we are trying to play with a bit more width lately.

Etzebeth does a lot of good ruck work but he does get around the field and play a bit wider, and it is super effective.

 

[Bowside]

You seriously think second row is our biggest problem?

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We have 1 test standard lock and he is often injured. It's a pretty big problem IMO.

 

[It is what it is]

In horse racing terms we have a strong wfa performer in Horwill when fit, a few handicappers and a lot of mid weekers.
In motoring terms we need a couple of big rig diesels with grunt, a monster truck and a turbo charged ute.

 

[Santiago]

Does in rugby people kicks DTs that easy?
because australia isn't doing that good and same with arg

and both DT stays

wat

 

[wamberal]

Every young tight forward should be sent to play a couple of seasons in New Zealand, to toughen them up, and teach them how to play the game properly: to run, tackle, and hit the rucks low, hard, and ruthlessly.

 

[No4918]

Fardy and Horwill for the next test. Timani on the bench.

McCalman offers more than Douglas or Simmons on the park and Fardy could be no worse at set piece. Douglas had a better game but not up to the AB or Boks as we saw in Brisbane. Simmons has been poor since the first test.

For the EOYT give Carter, Pyle and Neville the spots of Douglas and Simmons.

 

[Zander]

Douglas and Simmons have been average but you're kidding yourself if you think Pyle, Carter, Neville would do a better job. Why? They're not better at Super Rugby.

 

[boyo]

Does in rugby people kicks DTs that easy?
because australia isn't doing that good and same with arg

and both DT stays

wat

Some people get the DTs after a night on the turps.

 

[No4918]

Douglas and Simmons have been average but you're kidding yourself if you think Pyle, Carter, Neville would do a better job. Why? They're not better at Super Rugby.

Many would say Pyle was better than Fardy at Super Rugby level and look at how he is playing. Hate to use the old cliche about test rugby being different but think it is very relevant. Most of the locks are similar at Super Rugby but that top 2 inches and the extra effort needed to succeed may vary greatly between them.

Continued selection of players who regularly under perform and expecting them to change seems like a case of insanity (doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result). Not saying they should be all played at the same time but at some point they need to be tested.

 

[Zander]

Pyle's game does not really suit Test rugby at all. Fardy's game did, he was an obvious selection.

If you think Caydern Neville will make a bigger Test impact than Douglas and Simmons - wow. Douglas and Simmons are the best Australia have right now, they're young, keep persisting with them and by 2015 they could be world class players.

 

[Lee Grant]

We need hard men in all tight five positions who can do their technical stuff right; front row and second row.

That includes their unit work, as cyclopath mentioned above.

One thing I remember about the Bok scrum against us is what a joy it must be for a scrum coach to have five men who can scrummage like the Borg on the shove—and the other three weren't bad either just quietly.

But scrummaging is just one of the units

Our tight five guys get into the Wallaby team and join incumbents that aren't on the same page at scrum time, or lineout time or maul time, or stopping maul time, or restart time, or even counter-ruck time. Now and then they have a good day but when they don't they don't have a backlog of unit experience to fall back on.

A new Bok tight-five guy gets into the national team with a history of unit training in set piece or quasi-set piece, that we don't even dream about because we are not aware that there is such a dream.

We shouldn't ever be talking about tight-five forwards, including locks, because of how skilful they are or how athletic and yarda, yarda. That's just an add-on dessert, not the meat and potatoes.

We should be talking about who is best playing in units, can make dominant tackles and dominant runs, and are good technically.

But Lee, our boys aren't brought up like that—they are taught to run with the ball.

Good point.
.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Every young tight forward should be sent to play a couple of seasons in New Zealand, to toughen them up, and teach them how to play the game properly: to run, tackle, and hit the rucks low, hard, and ruthlessly.

The Soap Dodgers nearly missed out on Martin Johnson when he went to to Rural NZ (King Country) to toughen up in 1989, and they nearly missed the bus when he was selected for NZ under 21's in 1990. The nasty kiwis had even stitched him up with a NZ lady who later became his wife. It was apparently her insistence on wanting to travel to Europe that saw him slip out of the grip of the Lords of Darkness and return to the Mud Isle.

Source: The Oracle - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Johnson_(rugby_union)

 

[emuarse]

The Soap Dodgers nearly missed out on Martin Johnson when he went to to Rural NZ (King Country) to toughen up in 1989, and they nearly missed the bus when he was selected for NZ under 21's in 1990. The nasty kiwis had even stitched him up with a NZ lady who later became his wife. It was apparently her insistence on wanting to travel to Europe that saw him slip out of the grip of the Lords of Darkness and return to the Mud Isle.

Source: The Oracle - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Johnson_(rugby_union)

HJ,

I think you have been reading too many Mills & Boon romance novels