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The one thing that sticks out when you look back at highlights of former Wallabies flanker, and former Waratahs skipper Phil Waugh’s career, is that he really only seemed to have one gear.
Flat out.
Whether he was running out of the line to smash someone, or cleaning up at the back of the lineout, or even carrying the ball, there was never any doubt of his intent – to get wherever he was going as fast as possible and generally in the straightest possible line. Sidestepping was for mugs, and stop him if you can.
In all, Waugh played 79 Tests for the Wallabies, and captained his country three times for three wins. At the time of his retirement in 2011, Waugh held the record for the most caps (136) and most games captained (58) for both the Waratahs and NSW Rugby overall. Prop Benn Robinson went past Waugh’s record for most caps in this Super Rugby season just gone.
Like Stuart MacGill to Shane Warne, and even Chris Whitaker to George Gregan more locally and closer to the mark, Waugh spent much of his career competing with and being compared – rightly or wrongly – to George Smith.
Over the ball, the two of them were very similar. Quick to the contest, hard to remove, and relentless in competition for the ball. Smith was preferred more often than not – 35 of Waugh’s Tests came from the bench – because of a better all-round game. Waugh didn’t necessarily have the attacking subtleties or abundant head of hair that Smith possessed, yet he still started more Tests than he didn’t.
But for a good while there, between mid-2003 and the end of 2005, the two of them did play side by side. In all, Waugh and Smith started together 23 times (Waugh started 44 Tests in total), though five of them came at the end of 2005 with Smith playing at No.8.
Of the 18 games the started on either side of the scrum – Smith on the blind side, Waugh the open side – the Wallabies won eleven of them. The record in Bledisloe Cup Tests was two wins from five starts.
When John Connolly took over from Jones as Wallabies coach in 2006, he never used the combination again, and Robbie Deans used it just once, in the first few months into his tenure from 2008.
It was a combination of Waugh’s excellent form at the time and Eddie Jones’ determination that set-piece rugby was so 1986, and that mobile forwards was the key to dominating the international game, that led to the unusual pairing. The debate and the pro-and-con arguments at the time were scarily similar to what’s happening in 2015 around David Pocock and Michael Hooper.
But in fairness to Jones, his gamble was only one extra time wrong-footed drop goal from a modern great of the game away from coming true.
In all the footage of Jonny Wilkinson’s 2003 Rugby World Cup Final winner, it’s hard not to notice Waugh hanging off the open side of the ruck.
In fact, so keen was Waugh to pressure Wilkinson, that referee Andre Watson had to stop him from jumping the gun. And being forced back onside like he was might have been one reason – I think – why Wilkinson switched to the right foot, particularly when Smith was able to get the early jump on the blind side of the ruck.
That passage of play, as hard as it is to view even twelve years on, sums up Waugh’s career so well. It was the 100th minute of the game, a Rugby World Cup Final no less, and here was Waugh – already out on his feet – pushing himself to the absolute limit to launch one final pitch at winning a game.
The memories of Phil Waugh the player are all very similar.
They’re of him tearing into tackles, not unlike Hooper currently. They’re of him smashing into defence with ball in hand with all the subtlety but half the physical presence of Will Skelton. There was no quarter given, none taken, and certainly no half measures with Phil Waugh.
He was very much ‘all or nothing’.
It meant that he spilt more blood and changed more jerseys than the average player, and the flowing but thinning locks meant that he did closely resemble JRR Tolkien’s orcs when in full flight. And like the Orcs, Waugh was all muscle, which combined with his stature meant that more than a few opinions over the course of his career suggested he be converted into a front rower.
A tremendous ‘follow me’ type or leader, it’s hard to think four years on of a current forward would maintained the same energy levels. He genuinely just never stopped.