Coles, Creevy and Strauss: Defining the modern day Test hooker

Hookers. You can’t live with them, you can’t live without them. The contemporary version is a gregarious multi-tasker, even more so than he was back in the amateur day.

His role is expanding all the time and he is fast becoming the jack-of-all-trades on a rugby field.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the selection of the No.2 across the globe gives a rough-and-ready short-hand of how their teams are going to play. (Click to Tweet)

In the northern hemisphere, selection is still conservative. The best among the home nations is probably the England captain Dylan Hartley, an expert set-piece technician. Giulhem Guirado, the French all-rounder is perhaps the best-equipped European to switch to the faster pace required by Super Rugby.

Hookers in the southern hemisphere mirror the style and ambition of the teams in which they operate. The Puma rake Agustin Creevy has embraced the new attacking philosophy of Argentina, while retaining the core attributes the nation expects of their hookers.

The transition between Adriaan Strauss (and Bismarck du Plessis at the World Cup) and Malcolm Marx exemplifies the halting, uneasy interval between the old, power-based South African game and the new way forward, shown by the Lions in Super Rugby.

Meanwhile, New Zealand are galloping away with their interpretation of the position, with Dane Coles demonstrating a wide array of skills no other hooker in the world can match.

Pumas
Historically, Argentina has always required scrummaging strength from its hooker. Frequently they have been converted from props – think Federico Mendez and more recently, Eusebio Guinazu. Those three props in the front row, and the back-breaking bajada technique gave the Puma scrum a fearsome front foot.

At least when Marco Ayerza is available (and selected) at loose-head, the Pumas can still boast a scrum worthy of its ancestors, and Creevy is very much a part of that. But with Daniel Hourcade looking to expand the Pumas’ attacking game, much, much more is demanded of the 2 than in the day of Mendez, or even Guinazu.

The clips come from Argentina’s sensational World Cup quarter-final victory over Ireland, and the gallant haymaker they threw at the All Blacks a couple of weeks ago. In them, Creevy demonstrates the historic Puma power at scrum and breakdown, along with the new commitment to playing across the full width of the field.

The scrum power was certainly there at the World Cup with Ayerza still in harness, as the final clip illustrates. The shoulders of both Creevy and his tight-head Ramiro Herrera have advanced well beyond the Ireland #3 Mike Ross as Argentina win the ball against the feed.

With Argentina throwing the vast majority of their ball to the front or middle of the lineout, less is required of Creevy in this respect than Strauss or Coles.

Along with Strauss and Bismarck, and Rory Best from Ireland, Creevy is one of top defensive breakdown thieves as a hooker in international rugby. He is averaging more than one turnover per game in the current Rugby Championship and won two turnovers against Ireland in the quarter-final.

At 25:33 against New Zealand, the combined efforts of the two Sams – Cane and Whitelock – are not enough to remove him; at 1:45 against Ireland he is able to resist the cleanout attentions of no less than three Irish players.

The power to stand up over the ball in the tackle area translates into the power to stand up in contact with ball in hand. Working as an analyst for Wales back in 2004-05, I devised a new category (derived from American football) to measure the effectiveness of ball-carriers. It was called YAC (yards after contact) and was designed to quantify the yardage achieved by a ball-carrier after the first collision had occurred.

Against New Zealand, Creevy was used as a work-horse close to the breakdown, and he achieved hugely impressive YAC in this role. In the New Zealand clips at 33:59, 39:36 and 42:13 he earns 23 of the hardest metres available, while occupying seven All Black tacklers near the ruck.

But the role against New Zealand was game-specific. Under Hourcade, Creevy has been encouraged to provide tight forward width in the two 15 metre zones:

He can appear on the right, but more frequently attacks down the left side, where he can use his back-handed offload out of the left hand more effectively (New Zealand at 32:33, Ireland at 5:11 and 50:55).

So Creevy’s individual role with Argentina is a fair reflection of where the Pumas are going collectively – they want to keep their traditional identity at scrum and breakdown, but add width and offloading to their attacking philosophy.

Springboks
Steve Hansen recently described the situation of South African rugby very succinctly: “Maybe that has been part of their problem so far, they are not sure how to play… Most of the side is from the Lions and there is a certain style South Africa play and it is bruising, physical and reasonably direct. The Lions don’t play like that. I am not sure which one of those styles Allister [Coetzee] wants to play.”

The situation at hooker is a capsule of what is happening in South Africa on a larger scale. The incumbent, Adriaan Strauss, is the team captain but has handed in his notice for the end of the year. His obvious replacement, massive Malcolm Marx from the Lions, is one of best talents at the position to emerge for many years, but is being kept out of the match-day 23 by Bongi Mbonambi.

Marx is both a symbol of South Africa’s political difficulty with sporting quotas, and their stylistic difficulty in transitioning towards the playing pattern adopted by their most successful Super rugby franchise. This is what that transition looked like against the All Blacks in Christchurch:

Like Creevy, Strauss is one of the strongest on-ball hookers in international rugby at the tackle area, and he turns over two New Zealand breakdowns for penalty at 11:44 and 16:17.

He also exemplifies South African lineout expertise with his accurate throwing to the tail of the line at 3:42 and 13:10. In neither case is the ball in the air for longer than one second, and the All Blacks are unable to get a counter-jump up in time to contest. There is very little loop on the delivery and the line on both occasions. This represents superior technique against the best defensive lineout in Test rugby.

Strauss’ two intercepts against the Wallabies last week also showcased his ability to shoulder the responsibility of a key defensive role, inherited from the previous Springbok skipper, Jean de Villiers. Like de Villiers, Strauss shoots out of the line, squares his shoulders inwards to the side-line and ‘fish-hooks’ for the intercept – then offloads neatly to Elton Jantjies to convert opportunity into score.

Strauss (along with Bryan Habana) represents the best remnant of an era of success for South African rugby under Heyneke Meyer. But if the torch has to be passed anywhere, it must be passed to Marx and the Lions.

Despite his great size, at 120 kilograms, Marx can run and is a footballer down to his bootlaces. At 58:28 he is defending at the end half-back position in the lineout. He anticipates the chip from Beauden Barrett, stays with him all the way on the turn and recovers the ball, before tossing Malakai Fekitoa away like toothpick as he turns back upfield.

At 60:18, with ball in hand, he steps Wyatt Crockett before brushing off the tackle of Sam Whitelock and offloading deftly to his front-row colleague Vincent Koch.

Marx is a complete footballing package, but will South African rugby politics and coaching expertise allow him to be recognized as such?

All Blacks
If Creevy represents the sunny Puma smile, and Strauss and Marx the befuddled frown on the face of Springbok rugby, then Dane Coles – well, he must be laughing all the way to the bank!

The All Blacks are getting the absolute playing maximum out of the No.2 position. Coles represents the place where Argentine rugby aspires to be, and where South Africa is tentatively groping towards in its own separate darkness.

Coles was required to put on upper body mass in his early days, developing from 100 to 108.5 kilos in order to cope with the isometric loads of the modern scrum. As Mike Cron says, “under the new (scrum) laws the hooker has to scrummage every bit as well as a tight-head prop.”

His throwing to the tail of the lineout has become top-quality, as good as that of Strauss, as the two clips at 11:33 and 63:30 illustrate.

In the second example, Coles keys the ‘teabag’ move, which earned Tony Woodcock the All Blacks’ only try in the 2011 World Cup final. At 2:05, Coles is doing what a goal-kicker does – shifting from the inner stillness needed to complete the throw to all-action as the phase-play begins:

After throwing successfully to the tail at 2:05, by fifth phase at 2:37 Coles is over on the far side of the field, mounting a kick chase on the South African fullback!

It is Coles’ mobility and attacking skills which set him apart. In the All Blacks attacking system, he is consistently required to play in the wide short-side channel, along with #6 Jerome Kaino.

In the Christchurch Test, New Zealand had a clear plan of attack to hit in midfield at first phase scrums and then move the ball quickly back to the short-side.

Many teams will tip off this pattern of attack by shifting a back into the short-side first receiver role. New Zealand don’t need to, because they can rely on Coles’ ability to fill that role as a distributor – whether it is through ‘quick hands’ at 21:45, or by attacking the end defender and hooking an offload round the corner to Julian Savea at 27:36.

Coles has excellent passing technique, and that is what allows him to attack the line with the confidence of a distributing back. At 64:00 he takes three steps towards Damian de Allende before flicking a 15-metre scoring pass away to Whitelock (playing the Kaino role, with Kaino off the field) with no more than the power in his wrists and forearms.

It is the same at 32:19, with Coles making the long pass solely with the power from elbow to wrist. At 32:30, he is able to stop the defender (Vincent Koch) by running forward before he flicks the pass away across his chest, thereby preserving the overlap for Israel Dagg near the sideline.

Coles’ sheer running power has never been in doubt, as the reprise from last year’s return Bledisloe fixture amply demonstrates, with Coles running away from Wallaby wing Adam Ashley-Cooper to score.

Summary
The position of hooker is a dynamic and developing one. Changes of attitude and intent can be observed in the types of player selected.

Agustin Creevy represents Argentina’s desire to play expansively with ball in hand while keeping in touch with their traditional strengths at breakdown and scrum. Like Coles, he will typically be an attacker in the two 15m channels with his offloading ability out of the left hand.

The confused (and confusing) situation with Adriaan Strauss and Malcolm Marx underlines the lack of direction in Springbok rugby. South Africa’s coaches and rugby politicians need to commit to Marx to show supporters they know where they are going.

Dane Coles represents the All Blacks rocket-fuelled post-World Cup relaunch. His core skills at lineout and scrum are solid, and he has the ability to mask and enhance his team’s short-side attacks with his distributing skills.

To catch the All Blacks, their rivals across the globe will first have to unearth a talent to match Dane Coles!