Just see what the best wings can do…league also…to me…I’d part for SA, but for sure I’d be happy also if the England side wins…also , soccer sissies are out of Euro soccer 2008, so , what a marvelous way to promote rugby in England would be?
What a load of rubbish.
In American Football where the play is interspersed with breaks. The big men are more rested and likely to hit harder than their counterparts in Rugby. Dwayne has experienced this, so playing Rugby where the tackles are made in more of a fatigued state is not going to be that much of a problem. Nigel Walker of Welsh Rugby was a 10.4 sec 100m man and a 13.3X sec 110m hurdler, slimmer than Dwayne and about the same body fat percentage. He played for Wales at international level for about 5 years after retiring from athletics in his 30s. Rugby IS about speed and skill, if you are quick then there will always be a chance for you in the game to run in a straight line and score a try if that is an issue anyway, (Faster men are usually very agile and can move very quickly laterally as well as in a straight line). You only need a total of 3 or 4 such opportunities in the game for that to happen. In fact if you look at most of the teams that have done well in the World Cup it has been down to their faster or tactically adept men rather than the big men making bone breaking tackles. Where were the 120kg men in the Argentine side when Habana broke away? Where were the 120kg men when Josh Lewsey broke away? Left to trail in his wake. 120kg men are useful for the scrum and that is it. Having a high body fat is useful if you intend to be under a pile of men alot in a game but if you are fast and fit then why bother with the lard? Yes you need some BF but not that much. Dwayne would only need to increase his BF slightly if it were an issue. For a speed man in a Rugby game it is all about having 1-4 chances in the game to turn on the speed and score a try. With large men with high body fat and weight on the pitch, a speedster only has to bide their time to make an impact, its all about the marginals.
The only thing that would be a disdvantage is the inexperience of Dwayne…
Tell me; why has Brian Habana survived for so long if your assertion that low body fat would lead invariably to death after a tackle from a world class forward, then why is Habana alive? Has he not been tackled yet by a world class forward?
Certainly interest in the RWC has diminished and the fact that SA or England will have more RWC wins than us is a bitter pill to swallow. 
There are still the nutters who solely blame the match officials for our loss but the majority realise that it was the AB’s fault and inability to adapt to the situation that was to blame. There are questions over lack of leadership on field.
The NZRU announced at the time there would be an independent enquiry into why it went so wrong, especially as Graham Henry was given full control over everything and the ABs winning the RWC took precedent over everything else.
Interestingly a poll the other day showed the majority thought Graham Henry should retain his job as coach.
I agree and disagree with you.
True, but remember that the tackled player is also fatigued, causing concentration to be down causing a altered state of readyness for contact making the hits a lot harder.
You could not have picked a worse example. Walker was always an athlete not a rugby player. We are talking about top players in top teams. Walker would not have been be picked for any top tier team. Walker played in the amateur era ending his career when pro rugby started. The Welsh side at that time was really weak and their record in the games he played (only 17, hardly the World’s most caps) shows that:
1993 v Ireland (Cardiff) L 19-14 (FN)
1993 v France (Paris) L 26-10 (FN)
1993 v Japan (Cardiff) W 55-5
1994 v Scotland (Cardiff) W 29-6 (FN)
1994 v France (Cardiff) W 24-15 (FN)
1994 v England (Twickenham) L 15-8 (FN)
1994 v Portugal (Lisbon) W 102-11 (WCQ)
1994 v Spain (Madrid) W 54-0 (WCQ)
1995 v France (Paris) L 21-9 (FN)
1995 v England (Cardiff) L 23-9 (FN)
1997 v USA (Wilmington) W 30-20
1997 v USA (San Francisco) W 38-23
1997 v Canada (Toronto) W 28-25
1997 v Romania ® (Wrexham) W 70-21
1997 v Tonga (Swansea) W 46-12
1997 v New Zealand (Wembley) L 42-7
1998 v England (Twickenham) L 60-26 (FN)
He was a gimmick, an athlete turned rugby player that did not quite work. He was a great athlete with great results there, but I am afraid his rugby prowess can hardly compare. Please share names of players, in the modern era (2000+) that have achieved success at athletics and rugby and I will change my opinion.
It’s really also about toughness and getting up after being tackled or tackling someone. Please remember we are trying to compare the top players with the top athletes. Rugby potentially requires a multitude of skills from a player not only running in a straight line. A top backline player must be able to tackle a 120kg guy at full pace, get up ruck two other 120kg men away, poach the ball and out pace 7 other sub 10.5 guys, all in one movement. Then he doesn’t walk off the field to have a rest like in NFL, that whole sequence could be repeated 30 seconds later. If you think this is absurd have a look at Eng-Fra and the sequence around Johnny Wilkinson’s tackle on Pelouse. He tackled a 120kg player off the field had to get up wait 30 seconds and was then expected to kick the ball 50m down the field, which he did. Another example Wal-SA a few seasons ago, the infamous Bakkies Botha tackle on Shane Williams. Williams ran at full pace outstripping most of the SA players changing direction a multitude of times only to end up at full pace running into Botha’s 120+ frame for one of the biggest hits in the history of rugby. Williams simply got up and played on. Point being: Speed and skill (I presume you mean sidestepping, chip kicking and maybe the hand off) are only two of the great many skills required to be a top rugby player. I see this every single day especially at the semi-pro level at which I coach rugby. You get great players who are brilliant at some of the skills but are terrible at others. I have guys who can do close to 10.5 on the athletics field, but they are so shit scared of the contact that they probably only run at 11.5 pace on the field. Others are supremely strong and great at ruck time but lack skill at running or passing or visual skills or spacial skills or defensive skills or cardio capacity etc. A great player like Habana, Sivivatu, Rokococo, Carter, Mortlock and Wilko, McCaw, Burger, Smith etc can do everything required including the physical stuff at full pace.
Absolute rubbish. If you for one second think that is how those to teams got to the finals you don’t know the first thing about rugby union. Those were 20 seconds of rugby out of 160 minutes. Yes sure it gave both SA and Eng a bit of leverage, but hardly secured the win. In fact it was exactly the 120kg men that ground down their opponents for the other 158 minutes to secure their finals spots. As Eng did with Aus and Sa did with Fiji. In fact if you take the SA-Fiji game, this is the classic example. Fiji have players with the two attributes (speed and skill) you state above par excellence. They scored two of the greatest tries in RWC history in that match. Why did they not win and secure a RWC semi, SA’s superior 120kg guys crushed the Fijians pack. Why did Fiji beat Wales? Wales’ pack could not dominate them.
Again if you are a social or junior club player, or play internationals for Bosnia then yes, if you are a top international playing in the top tier then most definitely not.
And there is the most important thing: some things you can coach like speed and skill and the other half you can not.
Habana and the rest of the world’s top rugby players have relatively high body fact %. I don’t have the figures for the SA team with me at the moment, but most of it is rather high (hence the popular assumption that rugby players are fat, undertrained and not athletes). Any BF% under 11% puts the player at risk of internal organ damage as there just not enough fat around to protect the organs in a unprotected collision sport. This is medical fact. You and the rest of the athletics fraternity would agree that a world class sprinter with a BF% of 11% and higher would be called fat. Habana has most certainly not been injury free, he has only recently come back into form. I don’t know Bryan personally so I can’t comment on his BF%, but a player like Springbok center Jean de Villiers, who is a personal friend of mine, most certainly does not have a BF% anywhere near 11%, more in the 13-15% region, in fact without his shirt on the doesn’t look like a bodybuilder or even one of the athletes I train.
It is curious how can someone have 11% and 6 pack???(you can see UNDER the shirt)…the BF issue----have some research or it just…your thoughts?
I have research on it I just have to look for it again, and will post it. How many pro rugby players have you seen with 6 packs? I have not seen many.
A complete presentation of information about a large number of elite players has been given by researchers at San Diego State University in California. They did a study on the 50 odd elite rugby players in the USA. And found: “13.5 per cent for the US forwards and body weight is 90-120kg”
The best and most significant study was done on the English national team, who are playing in the RWC final, by Loughborough University, and this considered any fitness variations observed throughout a one-year period. They found: “a further reduction in body fat was noticed approaching the intended peak fitness time (13.3 and 11.4 per cent respectively for forwards and backs just before the major international matches).”
I will look for my other articles on the subject.
Why the hang up about BF? I really don’t think it such an issue. I think you seem to think that 13% BF is not attainable for a sprinter who converts to Rugby?
Their body fat percentages are high because of the kind of training they do and their lifestyles and their size… I am going by my observations of English Rugby players.
The high percentage of BF for rugby players IS NOT by design or preference though I am sure that it my be helpful once in a while.
Bodybuilders are extremely hypertophied and have relativley lower BF even when off season. Have you not heard of the stories where doctors have attributed their survival in a car accident to their high muscle mass? NOT because of their internal body fat; but high muscle mass. So, a highly mesomorphic rugby player with 10% body fat would do just as well if not better.
A better analysis to refute my example of Nigel Walker would be to give an individual stats profile of his performance at international level, like the number of trys he scored and so on… Not to give the game result as justification for rebuking my assertion. As we know, you can have outstanding individual players in a team but they may not perform to expectations example New Zealand.
Personally, I don’t think that the Forwards need to be 120kg in BW. 105-110 kg men would be fine for the job. Unless the man is a mountain naturally.
I am not hung up on the BF at all. eroszag wanted to no more on the 11% statement I made. In fact there is not a lot on the subject and certainly not too much emphasis on it in rugby conditioning. Going from whatever a world class sprinter is to 13%, should not be very difficult simply because as you state below the kind of training rugby players do.
I don’t think its neccesarily lifestyle that dictate their BF. Almost all of these guys today are true pro’s.
Dont get me wrong, I dont dislike him we are simply using him as example. Tests played 17, of which only 9 were against top tier teams of which only one against NZ was not in the then 5 Nations. Of those 9 games Wales only won two, thus the Wales team was really weak. we can safely assume that most if not all Welsh players in those teams would be considdered as world class.
Break down of his 12 tries:
1997 vs United States (1)
1997 vs Romania (1)
1997 vs Tonga (1)
1997 vs New Zealand (1)
1994 vs Portugal (4)
1994 vs Spain (1)
1994 vs England (1)
1994 vs France (1)
1993 vs France (1)
Of the 12, only 4 against top tier teams. 3 Tries in the 5 Nations, 4 in Fiendlies and 5 in RWC Qualifiers. That is a 70% stike rate in all games played. Compared to greats of his time:
Jonah Lumo 63 tests 43 tries
Christian Cullen 58 tests 52 tries
David Campese 101 tests 64 tries
Rory Underwood 90 tests 50 tries
Jeff Wilson 60 tests 44 tries
And of course world record holder:
Daisuke Ohata 58 tests 69 tries
This is a completly different topic I’d rather not go into here.
SA and ENG, FRA and ARG, the RWC semi finalists are certainly proving this not to be true.
Using the fact that the four semi finalists have over weight forwards in their team is not a validation or proof that the trend for developing very heavy forwards is the way forward. The trend is universal at the international level in other words the other teams have heavy forwards as well. The other teams that DID NOT make it to the semis such as NZ ALSO have heavy forwards. In fact the four semi finalists have very good kicking games and very mobile and fast backs with outstanding sprinting ability.
A 70% score rate is excellent. You can’t devalue his performance because you think that the opposition were not up to scratch. I am sure that had he taken up Rugby a 2- 3 years earlier he would have done even better. It is fair to say that he was successful. The fact that the likes of Lewsey, Habana and Robinson make such an impact is reason enough to think that a sprinter with higher bf (according to your requirements). The balls and toughness (according to your requirements), and necessary experience would do very well at the international level would you not agree?
Speed is king, look at the stats you have provided for International greats non were slow in comparison to their peers. So why do you dislike the assertion that a sprinter like Dwanye Chambers would do well (plus a few % body fat and balls of which Dwayne has enough)?
The 70% means nothing. Compare the number of test the greats played. Wales themselves had very little faith in Walker. Selecting him only 17 times in 5 years. If someone only plays 17 tests you can hardly take his stats into account when comparing try scorers. If someone plays one test (against Spain or some other tier three team) and scores 2 tries, his 200% try scoring rate does not make him great. Today’s great scorers, Habana, Rokococo, Howlett etc only really got mentioned as prolific after about 30 tests, where most still had a 90%+ strike rate.
Enough on Nigel Walker. The biggest thing for me is not the physical attributes, but rather the mental requirements. This is the same argument I have in the comparison between rugby and the NFL. A massive percentage of that which is required is mental. The importance of that is the fact that you can not coach it. You can control BF, improve speed and make a player stronger. The fact is you can not make someone tough, you can not increase guts.
The one thing that we can not deny is that all top level rugby players are tough bastards. I often wonder how many people would go through the abuse a guy like Richie McCaw or Schalk Burger or Lewis Moody goes through. Most mere mortal would have quite a long time ago. That for me is the key to a true great rugby player. Like I mentioned above, its the amount of hits you can get up from and then still perform the tasks required from your position.
I am also not sure if a athlete going into rugby would have the visual and perceptual skills required to play at the top level. These are skills that take years to develop, and only improves through playing the game. This argument would also be true for a rugby player going into the NFL.
Two other things I wonder about:
Except from Nigel Walker, I wonder how many other top level athletes made it into the top level in rugby. In South Africa I only know about Pieter Hendricks, the 1995 RWC winger who was a national hurdles champ and also had a 10.4 100m time. Dougie Howlett also did athletics at some level. But post 2000 there can not be many, if any.
I also wonder what the comparison would be like if you compare the weights of rugby backline players compared to top level sprinters. Also what the effect on a sprinters speed would be if you had to increase his weight from say 80kg to 90-100kg. As a point of interest Nigel Walker only weighed 78kg. Today he’d be one of the lightest backs in world rugby.
Completely agree with martyn76 and eroszag.
Rugby players are fat through lifestyle and poor training schemes.
No rugby players need to exceed 105kg unless your a giant, and front rowers for safety in scrums (neck and spinal injury risks?)
A highly mesomorphic build would make more sense then a high BF% tubby build. They are all so fat.
Mental toughness is not about getting hit in a tackle. I’ve played rugby, and if I was a wimp to pain i’d take a hit from Jerry Collins over running a 400m anyday. The Maadi cup winning rowers from HBHS who play in the 1st 15 (should have been best secondary school team in country-will win next year eaz) say that rugby is a soft poof sport compared to the extreme pain during rowing (13 training’s a week).
NO rugby player at the world cup this year could even dream of breaking 10.50 on the track straight off.
Rapsmvp could smash any player in NZ rugby over 100m, including howlett, rocko, siv, gear, anesi, and whoever else.
I will agree that you need some BF for contact sports, but rugby players use that as an excuse to binge out on beer and fast foods. If every rugby player lost 5-10kg, there’d be no greater danger during contact collisions as it would be universal weight loss, and the game might actually become fast and exciting - a.k.a. sevens. The Fijian sevens players are the greatest rugby players in the world-that kind of physical build could be used with great success in the 15’s.
PS for interest, Raps or John, Jared Payne from Waikato rugby team ran a 48.86 quarter in 7th form(17?), and Sean Maitland (NZ junior rep and in the canterbury training squad has run 11.27 at 16?, but hadn’t improved by 17 or 18).
At the very least rugby players could have defined, ripped arms and legs. Their arms just look fat too…Why?
I can’t seem to attach pics so here’s one link I found:
http://rodonline.typepad.com/rodonline/images/terrell_owens_france.jpg
Does he ever get hit? He looks to be in too-greater shape to be tackled…
There are international players in the past who certainly were sprinters. I remember on e particular NZ player who took pride in the fact that he was a 10.7 secs 100m man before taking up Rugby.
Well there are LOTS of sports that require mental toughness and IT CAN be developed. If you as acoach can’t develop it then you don’t have the knowledge or the tools. Sports like boxing and cage fighting require toughness so it is not just exclusive to Rugby.
You hark on about increased body weight as if its the be all. Think about it, if they are getting heavier then its probably due to more time spent in the weights room doing body building type workouts. Invariably the increase in body weight WILL slow the game down there will be less open flowing play. This will benefit coaches and teams that take a contrarian attitude and develop their kicking game and power play with MARGINALLY lighter players. I think its folly to believe that the heavier the better. Think about it this way. Put an incredibly strong, relatively light and explosively fast player (a sprinter that can play a bit of rugby) on the pitch and feed him the ball. Watch him run rings around the inflated forwards of the opposition.
You can be very strong and explosive without a reliance on more body mass. I think the game of rugby is going to suffer eventually because of this trend in trying to increase body weight. I was informed by a close rugby friend who played top flight Rugby that the trend is to jump in the weights room and do wery little else. Also they have noticed an increase in foot and knee injuries and hamstring tears.
You need heavy men fro the scrum that is unquestionable but the game is not all about that now is it?
I totally agree with the point you have made…
Of course you use techniques to improve this, but show me the rugby coach who can teach this to someone. To develop the correct mental frame of mind takes years, some guys are blessed by being born with it and most people will never have it. No coach or technique will get me tough enough to step into boxing ring or cage. I’m far to much of a sissy to get into the mental mindset to pick a fight with a world class boxer or cage fighter. And the same applies to rugby. Most people will shy away.
If you for one second think rugby players at the international level beat each other by pure pace alone you are gravely mistaken. Players at that level beat opponents by applying something to that pace, doing something at pace. At that level its all about visual perception, to know when to accelerate, where to run when to slow down, when to use the hand off etc. There are only a hand full of people in the world who can do this. Except if you have a obvious mismatch, at back against a forward, which is what you always strive for. Have a close look at the Ngwenya try in the US RSA game. Ngwenya made Habana stop and change direction (which is brilliant and what you want all wings to do in a one on one situation). This is what he said on the try:
“I was thinking of kicking, but then I thought I would try and get him to stop, and then gas him out wide,” recalled Ngwenya.
“And he did stop. It’s not that I’m fast, I just got him to stop so that worked pretty well.”
“I knew he would be annoyed. If I got beaten by a slower person, I’d be annoyed.”
This a very very over simplified view on rugby. Look at the best teams in the world at the moment. The current rules of rugby require backs to be bigger and loose forwards to be smaller than a couple of years ago. Backs need to be able to handle a lot more contact and the loosies to be a lot quicker.
Some of the backs and their weights:
Josh Lewsey 1.80m 88kg
Jonny Wilkinson 1.77m 88kg
Jason Robinson 1.72m 85kg
Jaque Fourie 188cm 96kg
Bryan Habana 180cm 94kg
JP Pietersen 190cm 98kg
Frans Steyn 191cm 100kg
Argentina’s top guys:
Felipe Contepomi 91 Kg 1.80 m
Ignacio Corleto 95 Kg 1.85 m
Juan Martin Hernández 94 Kg 1.87 m
Just in case the NZ or Aussie guys still claim to be the best team:
Josevata Rokocoko 1.89m, 98kg
Sitiveni Sivivatu 1.85m, 97kg
Dan Carter 1.79m, 91kg
Chris Latham 192cm 100kg
Stirling Mortlock 191cm 100kg
Lote Tuqiri 191cm 103kg
I’m not going to comment as your statements are totally over simplified and only generalizations. Or maybe I should.
Making a statement like you’ll rather take a hit from Collins flaws your argument. Have you recently taken one from him? Plus the other 14 AB’s on the pitch for 80 minutes and still managed to tackle them and outpace the whole lot of them? If you had then I’ll buy your comparison to the 400m.
On the rowing I’ll only say: we are talking about elite full time professionals not sub elite school boys (who are not even the top side in NZ)
The rules and the revs slow the game down not the players.
You base this on what? And the names except for Rapsmvp are rugby players not 100m athletes. Why would they want to run against him. Why not put Raps in a match against them and see who comes of best. But diciplines have different skill sets required. Please remember rugby players train to be rugby players and 100m athletes train to be 100m athletes. It’s like asking Asafa to run a 800m against a Kenyan and then calling him fat or slow or unfit or whatever.
Generalization! With how many full time professional rugby players have to personally worked to make such a statement? I worked with many of the SA Sevens squad that finished 4th on the IRB sevens circuit. I can assure you they are professionals in every aspect. I am also personal friends with many of the current Springboks and I can say the same thing about them.
The same can not be said about sub elite or amateur players, but again this discussion is about elite professional rugby players not club or school players.
You have done the tests on them all and have the stats to share with us. No? Another generalization.
And that is why they have won the RWC five times in a row and there are 15 of them in every Super 14 team.
If you can explain to me and the rest of the world how “defined, ripped arms and legs” will biomechanically make rugby players more effective we’d like to know. Maybe for their promotional photo shoots like the pick you attatched.
Congratulations South Africa they were the best team in the tournament and deserved winners.
FWIW although I don’t agree with everything he has stated I’m considerably more in agreement with Atletiek than others on the requirements of top level players. Its a pity we can’t get some input from No23 on this.
Happy days are here! I did not really watch the match (the build up was far to long, they gave us to much time to drink in the hot African sun before the match), I’ll have to catch the replays. I’ll tell you guys the parties afterwards were huge and will not stop any time soon.
