The Flanker’s Role- Richard Hill.
For the next two weeks, our guest blogger is Saracens, England and British Lions’ flanker Richard Hill. These days, in every sport, the word ‘great’ appears to be bandied about like confetti. But Hill is truly regarded as many as a genuine great of our sport, and one of the finest exponents of back row play the game has witnessed. With a career spanning 15 years at one Premiership club, and a key player in winning Grand Slams, World Cups and Lions’ series, Hill’s technical accuracy, work ethic and intelligent support are hallmarks of his game. Today we discuss the requirements of the flanker’s role, and next week, part 2 of this article focuses on tackling, techniques and tips.
The Flankers’ Core Role:
It’s often said that the flanker is the most versatile player in rugby, blending the solid handling and tackling skills of a centre with the strength of a prop, and the scrummaging and line out work of a lock. It’s a position I wouldn’t swap with any other as you have the absolute ability to affect a game, purely and simply as you are, or should be, always where the ball is.
In order to be effective, I believe there are 7 key qualities required in the wing forwards role:
- Huge work rate
- Intelligent disruption and destruction
- Primary tackler/high tackle count
- Supporting others
- Ball carrying
- Offensive defence- ‘big hitting’
- Tight play- line out and scrummage
You may not get all of these qualities in one single player, but certainly, across a well balanced back row unit, all of the elements I’ve listed are absolutely necessary.
Open, blind or 8?
When I started playing, the back row was probably more clearly defined in terms of the individual positions. Most sides played with a blindside flanker and an openside flanker. A few (French particularly) played ‘left and right’. Common wisdom held that the openside was generally the faster smaller support player and the blindside was the taller, more physical player and the 8 somewhere in between. One of those would be a primary line out option.
It’s certainly my view that modern demands have changed this and now more and more sides tend to select the back row as 3 footballing forwards who each have a contrasting blend of the requisite skills. The very best combinations have a fetcher, a link man, a flyer, a tackle enforcer, a ruck nuisence, a close quarter carrier. It’s best to have at least 2 solid line out options and the work rate of all 3 must be amongst the best of the field of play. The actual positions are not as important as the skills and role fulfilment.
As an example, England currently have exactly this in what I believe they consider is their first choice back row- Moody, the flyer with a huge tackle count, Croft the linker, a line out specialist, with Easter providing the close quarter power and calming influence at base of scrum. All three are not conventional 8’s, 7’s or 6’s, but together, they offer a pretty competitive blend of skills, and all three are viable line out options. Others that challenge the norm are Luke Watson, an intensely mobile 8, but comparatively tiny at 5’ 11”, and Tom Wood, a 6’ 4’ openside.
Teamwork
When England first played a back row of Lawrence Dallaglio, Neil Back and myself as a unit (I think it’s as far back as the second half of the first All Black test in ‘97- when we all had hair!) it raised a few eyebrows. 2 opensides and a blindside? The truth was Clive Woodward recognised he wanted all 3 of us to start, and believed we had the best blend of skills available, so we learned to adapt into our perceived positions. Until that test I’d played all my international rugby in a pure 7 role. After that test, I moved around 8 and 6 until settling at 6 a year or so later. Whilst we still played 8, open and blind, our roles were skill based, more so than positionally based and we became a ‘team within a team’.
Key to this adaptation, was understanding each others’ game and trusting those contrasting skills. We would openly and honestly communicate with each other and in training we would critique each other on very fine details- such as contact area of shoulder in tackle- where, when, how high? We took our understanding and communication very seriously, even to the last time we packed down for the last scrum in our 49th Test as a unit, and still, each of us intuitively called our roles out, despite knowing each others’ games better than we knew our own families! We would develop our skills and challenge each other; as an instance, I became a line out option fairly late in my career (specifically on the 2001 Lions tour), but we wanted to develop it, as it gave us another skill to offer.
From a training and playing perspective, I’d suggest any aspiring backrower not to get hung up on the number on your back, but be clearer in your own mind of the skills you bring to your team, the way you work as a unit with your immediate colleagues, and what other skills you can develop. Be honest and clear in assessing this, practice game skills, practice game situations, and practice hard.
Fitness and Training
Never underestimate the fitness requirements of the modern wing forward. If we take my opening comments about being rugby’s all-rounder, then it follows you need EVERY aspect of fitness.
Generally speaking there are 3 areas of measuring fitness:
- Power (Strength and Speed)
- Endurance
- Flexibility
Each and every one of those are key to your position. As an instance, people often forget that whilst you may have immense upper body strength and the ability to rip a ball in tackle or jackal, without the flexibility to balance and apply your power from some unstable positions, you cannot be effective
In addition to a balanced weight and endurance schedule, I also advocate training to agreed match conditions; as an example, if training handling skills, reduce the contact levels to 50% but complete everything. Then vary this will a full 100% tackle session, focusing on power and accuracy- again 100 % completion is the aim for both offence and defence.
Next week, I’m going to focus on practical knowledge: the Flanker’s Role in Defence and Attack, and talk about defensive techniques and positional play.
Cheers,
Hilly.
Richard Hill won 71 caps for England and 5 for the British Lions. With Neil Back and Lawrence Dallaglio he formed one of the most feared back rows in modern international rugby. In 2004, a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament put a premature end to Hill’s England career, although he won one more test cap for the Lions in NZ in 2005, and went on to appear for Saracens until his retirement in 2008, with a total of 275 first team appearances. He now works at Saracens mentoring the next generation of young talent, combining this with his role on the RFU Council. He has recently launched the RFU’s Wine Club, taking a self-confessed and blogged journey from wine novice to sommelier! Visit http://www.rfuwineclub.com/wine/richard_hill.html for more details or follow Richard’s views on twitter @rhillrugby
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