The beauty of professional sport is that every team represents a specific region in a specific country.

The people of that region are embodied in the form of 23 players on a given day on the rugby pitch and with that comes a great sense of passion and pride from fans and players alike.

In the game of rugby union one of the most invigorating things is seeing a player put a huge hit on another, be it in a tackle or a bulldozing carry. Physicality is one of the big reasons why we watch rugby. When Richie McCaw puts in a thumping tackle the whole of New Zealand erupts just like the Republic explodes when Duane Vermeulen destroys his opposition in a barnstorming run.

But why is it that some players are more effective in contact than others? Is it about size? If so then why have we seen scrum halves put flankers on their backsides every now and then? On the flip side, why do we see flankers annihilate scrum halves the next minute?

In a way this article is a loose follow up to my previous article Are ‘Power Players’ taking over rugby?. In this piece I am going to explore the various factors that make certain rugby players prominent in the contact area and others not. So get ready to get technical.

For the past two weekends I have attended a very interesting rugby clinic hosted by the Leopards rugby union. In these sessions we were visited by several representatives of the Lions rugby union who came to teach us about the importance of growing physically as a rugby player, what we needed to do to get on par with the professional athletes plying their trade in the country.

Several tests were done. First, we were measured in height, weight and structure. These tests were to determine our Static Player Strength (SPS for short). Now SPS is exactly what it tells you, how strong an athlete is when he is static. Interestingly the SPS and Momentum system was developed and used in New Zealand in the 1990s, but has steadily declined in its use right across the rugby world.

Determining your SPS is relatively easy enough. You take your weight in kilograms and divide it by your height in centimetres and then multiply it by either a hundred or a thousand, depending on your preference. The answer will give you a number between either 1 to 100 or 100 to 1000. Most prefer the use of 100 to 1000. Once you’ve done that… Voila, you have your SPS.

Here is an example:

Richie McCaw : 187cm, 108kg
108kg divided by 187cm = 0.5775
0.5775 times 1000
578 SPS

After this we were drilled to run various distances. We started with a straight five-metre sprint, then we proceeded to a ten-metre sprint and then a 20 and a 30 until we got to a 50 metre sprint, and ultimately the length of the entire field. Between all of these sprints we were given a five-minute break between each distance.

The long breaks served a very defining purpose. They wanted us to run all those categories to the very best of our abilities, at full speed and strength without fatigue getting in the way, even if we didn’t feel tired. These tests determined your momentum across the various distances.

Thirdly, we competed against one another in full contact. We were given turns as to who was the ball carrier and who was the tackler. These tests were done without tackle bags and it hurt like hell. The purpose was to examine our literal technique in a contact situation.

After these three tests we gathered once again. They told us that when faced with a contact situation, a player’s effectiveness is determined by the three factors we tested; SPS, momentum and technique.

The common rule is one that we’ve learnt in physics at school (those smarter than me will know more, no doubt), impact is determined by mass and acceleration or momentum as you would have it. The faster you are off the mark, the better. The faster you run the longer you go, the better.

Now let’s apply these three factors to the players we know.

SPS and Momentum
Jarome Kaino’s SPS comes in at 577 while Willem Alberts’ is a staggering 622, and yet Kaino is also widely viewed as a devastating ball carrier and tackler. Why? Because Kaino has more momentum on his side.

Pay attention to Alberts when he plays again. Because he is more muscular than aerobic he tends to slow down the farther he runs, in contrast to Kaino who actually picks up speed and power after his first five metres because he is far more mobile.

Alberts, on the other hand, has a good acceleration as far as forwards go. Alberts does best off the mark until the first five metres, very much the same way as most forwards in South Africa. and this is why he is so devastating in close quarters. Most of the times props are also like this.

Contrasting this is the forwards of New Zealand and Australia. Both these countries have forwards who are far more aerobic than those of say South Africa, England and Wales. Their forwards have a prime zone from five metres to ten give or take. This is why New Zealand likes to play their forwards at depth, because that gives them the opportunity to reach their prime zone and that in turn makes them highly effective, it gives them that extra punch.

South African and England forwards are the other way around. Most of them are not aerobic in their body structure and thus their prime zones are at about one metre to five. That is why they enjoy playing flat one off runners in pods.

There is a shift coming to this though. For instance Eben Etzebeth’s SPS comes in at 605, but he is incredibly mobile, athletic and aerobic. His prime zone will most possibly be the same as those of New Zealand as would Marcell Coetzee’s.

This is made clear when you observe various videos of Etzebeth’s best. Chief among those is the famous bump he gave Bismarck du Plessis in the Super Rugby semi-final in 2012, where he ran five metres give or take, accelerated and subsequently sent du Plessis packing.

You can see it again in 2013 at Loftus Versfeld where he ran ten whole meters and monstered Leguizamon in the build-up to JJ Engelbrecht’s try. Etzebeth’s prime zone is from five metres to ten at least, and not from one to five.

That is why he struggles to carry when acting as a one-off runner. Notice how Etzebeth tends to struggle when receiving the ball flat from the base, but excels when he runs from a little deeper much in the same vein as Australian and New Zealand forwards.

Now the rule here is a tricky one as we don’t know the official tested speeds of any professional players playing currently. When you hit your prime zone and work according to your tested speed you must add your momentum to your SPS which finally gives you your Optimal Player Impact (OPI for short). The highest your OPI can be is your SPS plus fifty.

This information is hard to come by and as yet I haven’t found anyone’s. So to my great embarrassment for the sake of enlightenment I will apply those methods to my own test results :

Armand van Zyl: 190cm, 102kg
102kg devided by 190cm
0.5368 multiplied by 1000
537 SPS
Prime Zone: 5 to 10 metres
Momentum Gain: Plus 15
552 OPI

So with momentum and all I stack up at 552 OPI which for a Number 8 in the professional game is far too low. Richie McCaw’s SPS is higher than my OPI meaning he is most definitely the stronger individual. Against Duane Vermeulen who has a SPS of 602 I am dwarfed.

The reason for this is one of two things or in some cases both. McCaw is six kilograms heavier than I am, doesn’t sound like much does it? If I gained six more kilograms I would have a SPS of 567 which is still lower than McCaw’s. The reason again is simple, with height comes more weight, obviously, and if a person shorter than you weighs more than you do it means that he has more muscle mass than you because he had to compensate for the height differential as well.

The second reason, although we cannot say for sure,but I can assure you it is most definitely likely, is because McCaw is faster than I am meaning he builds more momentum than I do, so his OPI will be higher than mine. More SPS and a bigger Momentum Gain means that Richie would, disregarding technique which we’ll discuss in a minute, beat me in the contact zone.

In the backline these methods become much more apparent. Jonah Lomu has a SPS of 612, but he can also run the 100 metres in 10.8 seconds. When calculating that into his SPS he gets a whopping 45 extra giving him a OPI of 657. Compare that to a winger like Joe Tomane who has a SPS of 526 and you can see why Lomu could terrify grown men and Tomane can’t.

Julian Savea is another prime example. He has a SPS of 560 and is relatively fast as well so we’ll give him a Momentum Gain of let’s say, 35 which leaves him with an OPI of 595. This rings true when you remember all his battles in the past.

At Ellis Park last year Savea casually brushed off the attempts of Cornall Hendricks, but he was driven back in the tackle twice by Eben Etzebeth. Etzebeth has a stronger SPS than Savea’s OPI. Again this is disregarding contact technique.

Duane Vermeulen is known for making metres in close quarters out of absolutely nothing. He is often hit right where he stands and yet he never concedes metres and most of the times gains them. The reason is because he has an SPS of 602 and most players don’t even get there in their OPI.

Obviously these are only theories and may be faulty, but I applied them out of curiosity the past weekend and I was surprised with how accurate these calculations were with most players.

Technique
Technique is the holy grail of any contact sport. If you have the right technique for the right contact situation then you can almost disregard the SPS and Momentum method.

Again the laws of physics make a cameo here. When you have a good technique you will literally be able to use another player’s size and moment against him when done correctly. There are two players who do this exceptionally well and both of them are All Blacks.

Richie McCaw and Kieran Read have excellent techniques in contact. In my view Read is the better of the two by a small margin. Pay close attention to Read’s angles, body positions and stance when he goes into contact. The key here is that he identifies the strengths of a player and changes his technique to counteract it. He is spectacular in this regard.

For example when he faces a player who likes to lead in with the shoulder he tends to rush up to him, hit him with the chest rather than his own shoulder, wrap his arms around the player and basically falls over with him. That is what I meant with using a player’s momentum against him.

Read basically doesn’t really put much power into the hit from the legs, but he does use quite a bit of bulk in his upper body because he needs to resist the bump and subsequently pull the player down ball and all with him. When done right that gives you two good things.

The first is that when they hit the ground the tackled player is facing the wrong way making it easier for Read’s team to turn the ball over. The second is that due to the nature of the fold, the opposition can’t offload the ball.

Richie McCaw’s tackle of choice is something they dubbed the “lean in tackle”, very straightforward, but very hard to time. Richie basically just leans in with his body and trusts his legs to do the talking. When viewed from the side it almost looks as if McCaw is falling over forward with one leg grounded parallel to his shoulders and another grounded firmly behind the front foot.

These tackles rely mostly on the legs. You can wrap your arms in any way you’d like, but the legs need to be split forward and backwards. The reason is because when you’ve made contact and you’ve successfully halted the opposition it’s easier to pull in a leg drive from this position. These tackles work fairly well against those two metre giant locks.

We love to say that size does not matter in rugby and truth be told it probably doesn’t when you have a good technique in contact, but we would be lying if we said that size doesn’t complicate things for the smaller fellows.

A player’s height is very important when evaluating the best way to defend against them. Julian Savea is known for his carries. He loves to bump off defenders and does it very well.

Now he is a tall man at 193 centimetres and that does complicate things when faced with him running down your channel. I can, however, safely say that the only thing that makes Savea hard to tackle is his height.

Israel Dagg, Ben Smith, Cornall Hendricks, Jan Serfontein, Adam Ashley Cooper and James O Connor are all players who have suffered the wrath of Julian Savea since 2012 in the Rugby Championship. Notice that the tallest of the bunch is 188 centimetres, a full five centimetres shorter than The Bus.

On the flip side certain players had no trouble tackling Savea. Last year against Wales I saw Cuthbert, North and Roberts take him down like a normal sized player. Etzebeth as well. Tevita Kuridrani in 2014 as well.

When I say that Etzebeth dealt with Savea easily, that doesn’t mean I’m saying that Etzebeth is Savea’s boss. What I’m trying to say is that Etzebeth is a full 10cm taller than Savea and that negates Savea’s strengths.

He can’t bump him off the way he bumped off Serfontein last weekend because Etzebeth doesn’t go so low due to his height. Savea hit Etzebeth’s chest and that made it relatively easy to drive back the big All Black winger. Savea does well against smaller players, but the big guys deal with him swiftly.

But now the question comes, how does a smaller player tackle someone like Savea? No doubt all of you have heard the saying “He can’t run without legs, tackle his legs.”. Sounds like a good plan doesn’t it? That is exactly what he wants you to do.

Most of Savea’s big hits come from a player trying to go low, Savea goes low with him and then sends him into next week. It’s his signature shot. He follows your movement and beats you in that position because he has momentum at his back.

Make no mistake, Savea does his carrying at pace and he builds up more momentum than any winger playing today. His natural size combined with the momentum at his back makes him a real handful. What makes matters worse is that he has great contact technique.

So, how does the average sized backline player tackle him? There is only one way and that is to cut his run short so that he doesn’t gain momentum. That or you put your entire being into that tackle and you hope to God that you make a good hit.

Overall I found the training camp to be very educational. This past weekend I played my first game for the season and put some of those lessons in technique to practice and it paid its weight in gold.

For those who weren’t deterred by all the technicalities, well done to you, you’re a better person than I am. Truth be told I almost fell asleep listening to all of it and had it not been for the cool manual they gave us with all this in it and more I could never have written this for you.

Hope you enjoyed it. I’m done being technical for now.