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I can’t see Benji Marshall prospering in Rugby Union, and I always felt Matt Giteau was more suited to League.
These two players are the perfect Rugby League five-eighths: half playmaker, half threequarter.
Yet in Rugby Union, this position does not exist.
Matt Giteau never quite found a position in Union, and I imagine Marshall will be the same.
They try Scrum-half/Fly-half/Second Five/Fullback, but none of these positions ever quite suit their free styles of play.
So how did Rugby Union – the game that supposedly allows a position for every body type – become so big?
Well, professionalism creates massive men, and games must evolve to match such cultural mutations.
Rugby League has thirteen players per side and Rugby Union fifteen.
To the casual observer, the obvious difference may seem that League dispenses with both breakaways and therefore employs just six forwards and seven backs, whereas Union uses eight forwards and seven backs.
However, this is not the ultimate difference between the use of positions in the codes. The crucial distinction is that League actually uses eight backs and five forwards.
League’s ‘Hooker’ is parallel to Union’s Scrum-half, and this allows the League ‘Half Back’ to mirror the Union ‘Fly-half’.
Yet outside the League ‘Half Back’ are six more back-line options, whereas his Union ‘Fly-half’ counterpart only has five comrades.
This is where the back-line positions in Rugby become strange.
Union employs only one playmaker in the back-line, which sees the position of Number 12 – a.k.a ‘Second Five’ or ‘Inside Centre’ – become all too ambiguous.
He currently needs to be a hybrid of an extra playmaker but also a hard-running Centre, and it has always been a position that irritates me.
There is no simply no five-eighth in a Rugby Union back-line, yet there should be. Let the number 12 be a Centre, because a good back-line requires two Centres, not the current usage of one Centre and a Second Five.
I see the Union Scrum-half as a link man. He’s not really a useful creative back and is simply there to provide service. He is the parallel of the League ‘Dummy-half’ and shouldn’t be thought of as a back-line position at all.
So my question in the professional era of huge forwards and huge backs is: Does Rugby truly need a three-man back row in the forward packs? Is there really that much difference between the body types of the ‘Blindside Flanker’ and that of the ‘Number 8’?
Could we have scrums still contested with only one Flanker per side? I’m not sure myself, but I’m curious to know if it could work.
It would still be fifteen per side but now with only seven forwards, seven backs and a Scrum-half per side, rather than the current outdated model of eight forwards and six backs, plus a Scrum-half.
The ‘Number 8’ would have to be called the ‘Number Six’ or maybe he would just wear number six and return to being called a Lock, while the ‘Openside Flanker’ would be retained. Number Six would then become a contest between the body types of the current ‘Blindside Flanker’ and the current ‘Number 8’.
The Scrum-half’ would now wear the number 8 on his back while the Fly-half would wear 9, and the newly-created position of ‘Five-eighth’ would now be the number 10.
All other positional numbering remains.
This is a simpler way to hybridise the codes, which would allow for a smaller body type via an extra creative position, which is currently going to huge men and making a mockery of Rugby’s ‘A Body Type for All’ pride.
It would also provide the Fly-half with another option outside him, balancing his current default option of kicking from first receiver.
If Benji Marshall doesn’t find a suitable position, it will be no big surprise to me.
Yet I will see it as Rugby’s loss, not Marshall’s failure.
I can imagine many kids choosing NRL and avoiding Union for this very reason of body type discrimination.
Take Australia’s Aboriginal preference for League over Union. Which position would have allowed Preston Campbell to succeed in a Union back-line?
There are many reasons our indigenous talent all heads towards League, and I believe it is in part due to the greater opportunity League gives to smaller body types. Union is missing out.
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.