The 4th Backrower

[big ginger 8]

As I'm sure many of you have noticed the best hookers have pretty much become a 4th backrower or more precisely a 3rd flanker.

Du Plessis, Moore, Servat, Mealamu and Strauss are prime examples. We might as well just train flankers and teach them to throw. As the art of actually hooking is long gone. What with scrum halves feeding to the second row. Unless their team use the French arrowhead system they don't even need to be good scrummagers just comfortable for their props.


Don't get me wrong I'm not saying it's bad they make for more exciting rugby I'm just interested i others opinions.

 

[JW.]

I like seeing a running/passing hooker, but I do think they should be able to scrummage. Feeding the scrum should be penalised (It even says so in the bloody laws of the game, refs just ignore it :S) and the ball should be hooked so the scrum can be contested. Otherwise it might as well be league. My knowledge of the scrum is limited (im a scrumhalf) but I do have respect and like a scrum and I think it's an important part of the game. And I hope they atleast try and do something about the feeding.

 

[Thingimubob]

i've noticed that mathew rees has upped his running and ball carrying game over the past few seasons, seems that everytime Wales and the Scarlets start to go a bit lateral he'll be the one to straighten the line and gain some metres for them.

 

[nadoss]

@JW. im a scrumhalf too, but in my club, they made everyone scrummage, and everyone played the backline at least a couple times, just so we all knew what we could expect from our teammates. Some of the feeding is ridiculous. When I was taught to feed, I was taught that you have to get really low, and when you put it in, you put it in STRAIGHT but you can put it in so that it bounces or rolls slightly off towards your team, because thats totally within the spirit of the law, but these players might as well just hand it to the 8-man.

 

[McTallshort]

Hooker is still technically one of the hardest positions on a rugby field and the 'new' fashion of feeding at scrum time has not changed that, they are key to the set piece and if your hooker is having a bad time your game effectively over.</SPAN>

Cannot agree with the point regarding scrummaging, if your hooker is a weak scrummager the whole front row suffers. Everyone talks about Vickery in the forst Lions test having a tough time but if Rees had started instead of Mears (moblile but average scrummager) Vickery would have had a much easier as we saw in the 3rd test.

All the hookers that have been listed were/are good scrummagers, from an English point of view Steve Thompson who started as a flanker is a great scrummaging hooker (much better than Hartley) and is also a handful around the park but is a bit dodgy at line out time. He has worked hard to get over that but if he had started as a hooker and not a flanker that wouldnt have been such an issue and he would still be first choice despite his brief retirement.

 

[ZeFrenchy]

Look at Szarzewski: hi hair is too blond and too long for a front rower, he definitely is a fourth backrower, or even a eighth back!