The rapid rugby education of Will Skelton

If Will Skelton has the breakout international season that many are now expecting, we may well come back to the Crusaders game on Saturday night as the turning point.

One of the live blog comments at the time spoke of Skelton ‘finally realising he’s big’, and that’s what it looked like.

It really felt like Skelton has come to grips with the idea of ‘playing’ as big as he actually is.

Whether that was because of a coming of age, or a quiet word from the coach, or the absence of Jacques Potgieter; we may never know. But whatever it was, Skelton led the Waratahs in the physicality stakes that took the Crusaders by surprise.

Skelton wasn’t in the Wallabies Rugby World Cup squad I named at the start of the year. In fairness, it was a squad assembled on January 2.

On the back of the Wallabies worst Spring Tour in many years, and with no other form to go on, I wrote of the four probable locks, “Rob Simmons, James Horwill, and Sam Carter probably pick themselves, and I think Luke Jones wins the last spot. I don’t have room – or have much interest in finding room – for Will Skelton, simply because a Rugby World Cup is not the time to be carrying a lock who offers little at lineout time and even less in the scrum.”

But tellingly, I added, “I’ll bet Skelton goes, for the record, but I couldn’t pick him on current showings.”

Nearly six months on, Skelton will be one of the first Wallabies forwards picked on current form. Of the locks I named back in that New Year squad, Horwill and Carter will very lucky to be included in the final 31-player touring party at all, and while Luke Jones will be on the plane, he’s probably still only winning the last spot. A big Rugby Championship is needed from Jones, if he can earn the opportunity in the first place.

A first-choice lock pairing of Simmons and Skelton looks locked in already, and there would be very little argument here.

And that would mark an incredible turnaround, because although he has been playing 80 minutes for most of the season, it’s really only been the last month or six weeks that Skelton has been really imposing himself on games. For the first part of the season, Skelton looked down on confidence.

On Saturday night, however, it was the first proper standout game I can recall from him at this level. And I don’t just mean a standout moment here and there; Skelton was literally head and shoulders above every other player on the park for the full 80 minutes. He ‘played big’ from whistle to whistle.

He might just be the best maul-destroyer in the competition this season. I don’t know if such stats are kept on this, but I’d imagine his numbers would be high.

His effectiveness in getting through the middle of opposition mauls, locating the ball, and then wrapping his tentacle-like arms around the ball carrier is unparalleled, and it was noticeable that the Crusaders on Saturday had to station two forward-facing forwards at the front of their maul in order to keep Skelton at bay. It worked at times, but if they were slightly slow in their reactions, Skelton would be through.

He was penalised late in the game for collapsing a maul, though, and it came at that point in the game where his enthusiasm for contact and carnage was just slightly ahead of his brain.

When he’s completely engulfing the ball-carrier, he just needs to remember that it’s rather unsubtle for a man so big to apply such obvious downward pressure on the player he’s on top of.

Regardless, it’s a skill that once refined is going to come in very, very handy once the international season progresses to that little quadrennial rugby carnival that is driving any and all national rugby discussion. If Michael Cheika and his assistants can come up a method whereby Wallabies teammates work in conjunction with the ‘Skelton maul crane’, then opposition teams will need to rethink how and when they use their attacking maul.

And on the topic of Skelton and subtlety, much has already been opined and many keyboards have been violently attacked over the last few days without me needing to go into the big man’s indiscretions again.

Indeed, the biggest issue was dealt with last night, with SANZAR Judicial Officer Robert Stelzner SC handing down a two-week suspension for Skelton’s part in the horrible-looking tackle on Sam Whitelock. It’s fair to say there were other elements of his impressive game against the Crusaders that need to be reined in a touch, too, and he’ll cool his heels for the next fortnight while he thinks about all of that.

Skelton came to prominence through his ball-carrying and his offloading in traffic, but interestingly, it feels to me that this part of his game is what hasn’t been as effective this season, or at the very least, in the last month or so.

A quick look back through the stats confirm that there’s been a drop-off even in just last four games. Skelton managed only one offload in total for the Crusaders and Sharks games, while he got seven away against the Force and Brumbies. His run metres in those four games have barely broken 20 metres each match, as well.

It will be interesting to watch his impact in attack over what remains of the season. His lineout work is greatly improved, and he’s been central to the increased effectiveness of the Waratahs scrum under Mario Ledesma.

From a Wallabies perspective, Skelton’s defence is already excellent. He just needs to transfer – or duplicate, ideally – some of that mojo and mongrel to when he has the ball in his hands.

And from a Waratahs point of view, if he can find that spark a bit earlier, then he might be the catalyst for their still slightly misfiring attack to regain its teeth ahead of the finals.

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Just on a personal note to finish, I discovered several days after the event that last week’s column on refs being rubbish and why we’re to blame was my 500th for The Roar. My humble and sincere thanks to everyone who has kept coming back to read, contribute, discuss and debate the big topics over the years.