What does it take to be great?
In this fascinating extract from Rugby Revealed, four of Joe Schmidt’s squad reveal what players need to excel in their positions and the guys that make it look easy.
Mike Ross
A healthy disregard for their personal safety, great consistent scrum technique and a large dose of aggression. Cian Healy always goes into games full bore, and is very much the modern prop – freakishly strong, powerful, and very good with the ball in hand, for which he should be stripped of his membership of the Front Row union!
Devin Toner
Great second rows are the ones who are able to run a really successful lineout on top of excelling at all their other duties. Victor Matfield and Paul O’Connell have been at the top of their game for so long and both are pretty much masters of the lineout, both offensively and defensively. You can tell that they put a lot of work in their analysis of the opposition and this tells because they disrupt so much of their opposition’s ball.
Sean O’Brien
It takes years to develop to a world-class standard. Players like David Pocock, George Smith and Richie McCaw, have been studying and rehearsing these skills since they were kids.
This has given them the ability to be destructive around the pitch and cause a lot of problems to the opposition.
Johnny Sexton
I admired Jonny Wilkinson and Dan Carter growing up but I’ve taken bits of others games. Like the way Stephen Larkham would glide with the ball. His passing range was extraordinary. Or Ronan O’Gara’s spiral kick into the corner. You try to take the best bits of those guys’ games and incorporate them into yours.
Rugby Revealed contains interviews with more than 100 top rugby players and coaches, who combine to explain the game to the next generation of players.
It is available in all good book stores and online.
