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#Post#: 81276--------------------------------------------------
Re: TRP this week
DIR By: poorfour
Date: January 4, 2022, 3:50 pm
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--- Quote from: Quinston Churchill link ---
>
> Not to open up more of a debate, but would it not usually be
the opposite of that? I.e. the 5 as the tighthead lock and
‘enforcer’ type and 4 as the more athletic of the two?
>
--- End Quote ---
Johnson, Kohn, Itoje, Symons, Lamb were or are 4s
Kay, Robson, Kruis, Lewies were or are 5s
Itoje's pretty athletic, but he's definitely an enforcer and a
lineout disrupter more than a primary caller. That said, I
believe he sometimes packs down at 4 because he's a very good
scrummaging lock. I wouldn't be surprised if some teams and
countries number them the other way around.
#Post#: 81281--------------------------------------------------
Re: TRP this week
DIR By: JammyGit
Date: January 4, 2022, 5:06 pm
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Calling the lineout is independent of which shirt they wear,
though.
And I'm not sure how it makes sense to say that Kruis - the big,
slow, power forward - was more Ben Kay than Martin Johnson.
Kruis was an excellent lineout forward but he was a grunt lock
first and foremost.
#Post#: 81283--------------------------------------------------
Re: TRP this week
DIR By: poorfour
Date: January 4, 2022, 5:23 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: JammyGit link ---
>
> Calling the lineout is independent of which shirt they wear,
though.
>
> And I'm not sure how it makes sense to say that Kruis - the
big, slow, power forward - was more Ben Kay than Martin Johnson.
Kruis was an excellent lineout forward but he was a grunt lock
first and foremost.
>
--- End Quote ---
It's not independent of their shirt numbers, though. I can
remember the uncertainty before both Lawes and Itoje started
calling lineouts internationally; neither of them did it
regularly for their club and it was seen as a risk for England
when they did it. Both of them were successful and it's
broadened England's options.
Likewise, I see Kruis as a direct successor to Kay because they
were both setpiece specialists. Kay might have been a bit
lighter and faster but he wasn't exactly an all court athlete as
England learned to their cost in the RWC Final. On the other
hand, it was only in the period between Marler and Kruis coming
on and the Boks deploying the bomb squad that England had
anything approaching an edge in the scrum at the RWC Final.
#Post#: 81285--------------------------------------------------
Re: TRP this week
DIR By: JammyGit
Date: January 5, 2022, 3:06 am
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: poorfour link ---
>
> It's not independent of their shirt numbers, though. I can
remember the uncertainty before both Lawes and Itoje started
calling lineouts internationally; neither of them did it
regularly for their club and it was seen as a risk for England
when they did it. Both of them were successful and it's
broadened England's options.
--- End Quote ---
I remember the same. The problem here is that lineout calling
isn't tied to the shirt number; it's tied to how good they are
at understanding lineouts, predicting opposition plays, how
strategic they are with their thinking, etc. Sometimes even a
flanker (like Tom Wood) can be a lineout caller. It's another
piece of the puzzle to juggle.
--- Quote ---
> Likewise, I see Kruis as a direct successor to Kay because
they were both setpiece specialists. Kay might have been a bit
lighter and faster but he wasn't exactly an all court athlete as
England learned to their cost in the RWC Final. On the other
hand, it was only in the period between Marler and Kruis coming
on and the Boks deploying the bomb squad that England had
anything approaching an edge in the scrum at the RWC Final.
>
--- End Quote ---
I get where you're coming from but Kay was more of an all court
player for the time than his drop in the final suggests! Agree
about Kruis and Marler coming on in the final, but that's an
easy one: Kruis was our biggest scrummaging lock, right? Which
suggests he's more of a "4" in your parlance. And he came on for
Lawes...
Things were a lot more clearly delineated back in the day. In
the Johnson era, it was common to consider your grunt lock the
"2" jumper in the lineout - the stronger, less mobile, banker
ball if you threw it straight at him - and the other one the "4"
jumper who had more lineout ability and mobility. Lineouts were
much less sophisticated (players basically stuck to their
positions in the lineout) and back rowers nowhere near as good
(or as big!) as they are now. These days most sides can rustle
up 4 genuine lineout targets and every single one of them is
likely to be miles better than the majority of locks of any type
from back in the day, so the sharp difference between 4 and 5
doesn't really exist in the same way.
I think it's useful to have archetypes but that only goes so
far. Clearly teams can be successful picking monsters at 4 and
5. The old adage of "they're too big to lift" just doesn't seem
to matter any more, there's more jumpers available than before,
and who you're picking as your lock pairing will depend
primarily on a) who your best players are, and b) who makes up
the rest of the pack. If you've a massive pack, picking a
lineout genius is a no-brainer as you won't lose much; if you've
got two superb lineout forwards in the back row, two behemoths
gives you a big boost; if you're lacking ball thieves, an Itoje
(class aside) or a Beirne is a huge bonus.
Enjoyable convo, appreciated it :)
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