All Shapes and Sizes

All Shapes and Sizes

Tuesday December 20 2005

And they have differing characteristics

Rugby is a game for all shapes and sizes, and varying levels of strength and skill. That is one of the glories of the game. And often by their looks shall you know them.

And you don't have to be a national selector to see who plays where. Just look at a line-up - the tall man with the languid, one-sided stance; the short fellow with the chin up and a cocky expression and hair gelled to spikiness; the sly-looking, dumpy one; the neckless wonder with his knuckles on the ground, his shoulders round, his head down in embarrassment - and you know who they are. You could turn away and immediately say, lock, scrumhalf, hooker, prop and so on. In fact they are even more type-cast than their looks.

Fullbacks tend to be quiet and aloof. They are loners, quiet men with a small vocabulary of 'Mine', 'Yours' and 'Mark'. 'Mine' is what they say when there is some other team-mate around but the opposition are some distance away. 'Yours' is what they say when there is some other team-mate around but the opposition are close. And 'Mark' is what they say when there is nobody else around and the opposition are close. They enjoy spectacular attacking, joining the backline and scything into space. They like scything.

Wings are like fullbacks only willowier and of an even smaller vocabulary. They tend to walk on the balls of their feet with a springy step whereas fullbacks are heavier of foot. Wings have the aloofness of martyrs. They seldom get a pass and when they do it is rarely where they wanted it. Their talents are not sufficiently appreciated. Occasionally there is one who gets stuck in but by and large they expect to be served - and with courtesy and respect. Their best gesture is a shrug with a hard-done-by grimace.

Centres are different. They are sturdier and of a cocky mien. They talk a great deal, often out of the corners of their mouths or behind their hands. Unlike wings, they enjoy physical contact, and stand with hands on hips in excited anticipation of a chance to take their opponents on and out. They know they can win. 'Big hit' is the vocabulary they like best. With the passing of time they have become less creative and find life easier when required to "take the ball up", i.e. crash and carry.

Clifford Isaac Morgan was one of the great Welsh flyhalves, and that is the land where above all they make great flyhalves. He said: "God gave me bandy legs, pigeon toes, a big backside and a low centre of gravity and said, 'Morgan, go forth and play for Wales.'" Flyhalves tend to be like that, somehow better created than the rest of us - dexterous, artful dodgers, the cool James Bonds of rugby, able to kick with both feet, avoiding trouble and dabbing their noses with a handkerchief while a furious ruck is happening in front of them. Hairstyle is important for them.

Scrumhalves are cocky. They are the undersized streetfighters of the rugby world. They bounce about, india-rubber men, giving lip to everybody, obeyed and protected by their eight-man bodyguard. And many teams will pick their scrumhalf first. They make excellent referees.

Hookers are the rogues of the rugby world, men of dubious loyalty and morality. Their props guard them as if their lives were sacred because they know their team depends on them for the golden ball, in quest of which they spend their lives in bovine devotion. Hookers used to count the game in terms of tight-heads won and lost. They don't do that any more. Now they get a thrill out of 'popping' their opposing hooker or taking him down and putting him off when he throws in at a line-out and running over a prone scrumhalf as they wobble round the front of a line-out. They are also the sloppiest dressers in the team, though they love striking poses at line-out time. Having the hooker to throw in has done wonders for their profile. They are much seen on television with worried visage, absolute concentration and the poise of a warrior's statue.

Mind you hookers have lost some of their cunning now that things like foot-up and putting the ball in straight no longer matter.

Props are the game's devoted. They know they are servants, men of little skill and standing, who make walking look cumbersome. In their dedicated humility they accept all the insults hurled at them by the thinkers behind the scrum, for they know their negligible skills deserve chastisement. They are grateful just to be allowed to deliver the ball to their scrumhalf. And if somebody should notice them and mutter a word of praise they are as covered in confusion as a convent girl at her first dance - or the way convent girls used to be. When a referee penalises them, they have the best expression of injured innocence which is genuine because they do not know what he is talking about - and they know that he does not know what he is talking about. A prop actually is a quiet and humble man, forced into aggression by loyalty to his team. At the end of it all, after they have exchanged notes with their opposing prop, they go off home with little treasures in the hearts, such as "I won the ball that gave that fancy-pants wing his try and which saw him hugging and high-fiving and not even saying hello to me."

The lock is a dreamer forced to be macho. He has problems getting messages from his brain all the way to his extremities, though there is the occasional one who can do a John Eales, though it never looks right, rather like a circus elephant doing balancing acts. And because he is big, he is expected, despite his spaniel nature, to go first into battle. He is also expected to take the knocks at kick-offs and in line-outs and never flinch in any way.

Flanks are the game's sharks. They take chances with everything, as they maraud along a path of destruction. They love pounding a shoulder into a tackle, swooping onto a loose ball to palm it back, shoving a lock in the back at line-out time. Hookers are obvious rogues. Flanks are devious, filled with a philosophical cunning denied hookers.

There are actually two kinds nowadays - the daredevils of the tackle, reckless of life and limb in pursuit of the ball - the fighter pilots of the rugby field. And there is the ball-carrying, line-out-leaping type, as aloof as a flank can be.

The No.8 have tended to be elegant - the flyhalf equivalent in the pack. He is skilled and a bit of a dandy. You will never see him attack his nose with a sleeve, let alone a thumb and forefinger. And the girls like him, second only to a flyhalf. Heaven knows why. Yet, of late, their glamour has paled a bit as they are required to jettison skill in favour of graft and bash.

Get a team to line up in mufti, and I bet you can pick them out.

And aren't they all marvellous. There is something special about a rugby player.

The great Danie Craven of happy memory had simple advice for girls he lectured at Stellenbosch University: "Marry a rugby player."

It is the best advice any girl could possibly have.