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The more I see of Wallabies lock Will Skelton, the more I am convinced he will be a Rugby World Cup star for Australia.
This premise is subject to three provisos:
Seemingly exasperated by a Wallabies team which fails to deliver consistent, winning performances, many rugby fans express their frustration by zeroing in on players, often with a zealousness and mean-spirited undercurrent far in excess of a particular player’s shortcomings.
This caravan has long since moved on from Quade Cooper and, more recently Kurtley Beale, and now seemingly can’t decide on who the biggest villain is out of Michael Hooper, Benn Alexander, Nick Phipps and Will Skelton.
The barrage of criticism for Skelton in recent weeks is mind boggling, both in terms of the extent of its feeling, and also because it is simply so wrong.
Let’s be clear. The Wallabies are not in free fall down the IRB world rankings because Will Skelton isn’t conditioned enough to play 80 minutes of Test rugby, or isn’t a world-class scrummager.
Skelton is but one piece of a giant, complex puzzle, which has its roots in history, culture, administration, inter-state rivalry, competition structure, coaching, pathways and so on and which ultimately feed into a 30-40 man Wallabies squad, and from there, into the game-day squad.
In that sense, if Skelton plays every minute of the current end of year tour or doesn’t play at all, the results essentially stay the same.
He isn’t ready yet to turn a match Australia’s way off his own back – but then realistically, which Wallabies player, in isolation, given his teammates around him, is?
Watching Skelton’s brief cameo in the latter stages of the weekend’s Test match against Ireland I saw a player contribute energy off the bench, a willingness to get involved, to try to provide go forward impetus. I also saw glimpses of skill, including a nice one-handed off-load, and impressive body strength in defence.
It was everything coach Michael Cheika would have asked and expected from him.
And while it wasn’t enough to overcome Ireland on this occasion, it still carried the stamp of a player who belongs in Test rugby and who, if handled properly, will eventually emerge as a great Wallaby.
Skelton in 2014 has many positive attributes and a few negatives. The positives are things that generally can’t be coached – size, ball skills, rugby instinct and pace (relative to his size). He also has a humble nature, level head, is keen to learn and by all accounts, is a willing trainer.
On those factors alone he is already well ahead of most aspirants for a Wallabies second row position. It is no secret that Sir Graham Henry chased the Auckland-born Skelton hard before Skelton committed to the Waratahs and Australia, and it is easy to see why.
His weaknesses are things that can and will improve over time. Scrummaging technique can be learnt – assuming that there is a scrum doctor available who is actually up to the task. Australia’s scrum is no longer the basket case it once was, but there is still plenty of individual and collective improvement which needs to come.
That Skelton is not currently a lineout option is something that must and will be overcome. Tipping the scales in the region of 130 kilograms means that improving his vertical leap and the burden on his lifters are both formidable tasks, but surely not insurmountable.
Many critics unflatteringly compare Skelton to his two southern hemisphere contemporaries, Brodie Retallick and Eben Etzebeth. Closer analysis however paints this as unfair.
Skelton is 22 and has now played 24 provincial or Super Rugby matches, and 7 Tests for the Wallabies, of which a high proportion have been less than half of the 80 minutes.
By comparison, newly crowned IRB player of the year Retallick, 23, has played 63 provincial matches and 35 Tests, and Etzebeth, also 23, 28 provincial matches and 35 Tests. That puts Skelton around two years behind them in ‘rugby years’.
Throw in the consideration that Retallick has profited from exposure to the All Blacks environment and systems, and Etzebeth has been mentored by hard heads like Victor Matfield and Bakkies Botha, and the comparisons become even more inapt.
What Skelton needs is simply something which many fans seem incapable of allowing him, time. Time to put more rugby miles under his belt, to learn the dark arts of tight forward play, to grow into his enormous frame, to find his optimum playing weight and to align himself so that his engine is sufficiently in tune with his body.
With this will come the confidence to impose himself on matches as is befitting of his future status as a first-choice pick at lock.
Skelton may yet play an important part in the 2015 Rugby World Cup. The Wallabies today do not look like a team likely to win the tournament, but it is ridiculous to suggest that they cannot do so.
With a brief break to recharge over Christmas, and another Super Rugby season under Michael Cheika to come, there is nothing to suggest that further natural improvement won’t see Skelton consolidate his position in the match-day Wallabies squad by then.
But anyone with the patience to look ahead towards the 2019 rugby World Cup can surely imagine a 27-year-old Skelton dominating the forward play like no other Wallaby in memory, while also charging around in the loose, ball in one hand like the love child of Sonny Bill Williams and Colin Meads.
Anyone who has stood in a Kauri forest in Northland or among the great Redwoods in California would understand the folly of someone generations before criticising these trees while they were still saplings, growing to maturity. Quite simply, they were always going to be great, allowed sufficient time and patience to develop.
And so it is with Will Skelton. Our modern society, in all of its celebrity culture, T20, pop-up restaurants and 140 words or less, seems incapable of judging anything other than by its impact in the present. And thus, to many, he is dismissed as a fail.
That is patently wrong. Australian rugby has a genuine star on its hands.
Let’s enjoy Skelton for what he offers now – in all his imperfection. But let’s be truly excited about what the future holds.