- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Let me begin this article with my personal opinion of Rob Simmons: while I have never been his biggest fan, I will acknowledge that for a long time he was the leading lineout jumping second-rower in Australia.
He is very strong in the scrum, a great defender and has a high work rate. Personally, I would have liked him to possess a little more physicality and to remove the at times silly and costly penalties at lineout time, most commonly in maul defence, but he is a highly experienced and skilled rugby player who showed even last weekend that he can still play a role for the Wallabies.
I understand why Rob was signed. The retirement of last season’s lineout caller Dean Mumm and the experience that he held is a massive void to fill and, honestly, in the short term Rob fills this gap extremely well on paper. However, why I struggle to understand why he was signed comes from a number angles.
Firstly, why isn’t Rob preparing to move to Melbourne? The Rebels have signed Geoff Parling, who, mind you, is a handy signing but isn’t eligible for Wallabies selection and goes directly against the idea that we are stronger as four Super Rugby teams.
Each week there will be eight run-on locks, four of whom you’d think will be lineout callers. With Geoff likely to start with the Rebels and taking up the calling duties, we in theory have only three first-class callers to select from.
We have seen how detrimental this has been in positions such as scrum half and flyhalf in recent seasons where foreign marquee players have limited our choices and a number of bench players have found their way into the Wallabies squad.
The second issue I have with this signing is that it neglects the talent plying their trade in the Shute Shield. With the horrid Super Rugby season we endured, it wasn’t hard to be infected with the Shute Shield hype even while living in far north Queensland and getting to watch only on catch up.
Hindsight is fantastic and the Waratahs most likely didn’t have squad space for these players, but just off the top of my head we have nurtured Adam Coleman and Ben Matwijow, among others, in the Shute Shield only for other franchises to benefit.
(Image: Tim Anger)
That’s fine, but we have an opportunity to find our own diamond in our local competition – to show the club rugby faithful that the pathway they pour blood, sweat and tears into is still helping to build a strong professional system – and, let’s be honest, it would be good PR for New South Wales Rugby Union.
Instead we just signed a guy from Theodore in central Queensland. Two young Shute Shield players who jump out at me are Nick Palmer from Norths, who is 25 years old, 198 centimeters tall and weighs 108 kilograms, and Fergus Lee Warner, who is 23 years old, 195 centimetres tall and weight 111 kilograms.
Palmer is a strong jumper and shield-winning player who would be a great addition to the team. Lee Warner is a little shorter, but at the same time he is the same height as Maro Itoje. He finished the season with 271 tackles from 15 matches – that’s 18 tackles per game – and missed an average of just four minutes a game.
Both these guys have a number of seasons of senior rugby, and I think the importance of playing senior football is totally underrated with schoolboy and under-20 players being fast-tracked to Super Rugby often without the correct physical and mental development required in the forward pack.
My last issue is that Jed Holloway isn’t seen as a second rower anymore. He is a very gifted footballer, possesses a fantastic all-round game with fantastic hands and deceptive speed and is a strong ball runner.
He is listed at 195 centimetres tall, which is on the shorter end of the second-row scale, but I believe that he’s more than up to playing in the tight five.
Personally, Brodie Retalick and Sam Whitelock are the best second-rowers on the planet. It goes further than their set piece and work rates; they are both extremely athletic and have better ball skills than some of the backs in Australia, with Retalick often popping up in the outside centre channel and putting teammates into space while running at full tilt. I see Jed as possessing some of these skills, unlike a lot of our tight-five players in Australia.
While I will always support the Waratahs and the Wallabies, I do struggle with some of their approaches in recent times, and this signing is just one of them. But I will cheer Rob on next year, and I hope coaches like Simon Cron have him develop some additional skills and get him pushing for constant starting jerseys with the Wallabies.
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.