The curious case of Will Skelton shows the south can learn from the north

One game into the British and Irish Lions’ tour of New Zealand, and the jibes have already begun.

After the Lions’ unimpressive win over a scratchy, semi-professional New Zealand Barbarians side, “incompetent”, “abject and “ghastly” were just a few of the media adjectives applied to the Lions’ “damp squib of a performance” in Whangarei.

And of course the critics were right. Nonetheless, it would be a big mistake to extend this local snapshot of the Lions into a valid view of Northern Hemisphere rugby in general.

Back in December 2016, big Will Skelton – all 6’8 and 150 kgs of him – moved from the Waratahs to European champions Saracens on a two-month deal.

Saracens needed second row cover after the sudden retirement of Alastair Hargreaves, and Skelton needed a boost to his flagging career.

He had not enjoyed his international season with the Wallabies, he was out of shape physically and he looked like a busted flush, as my article at the end of the June series last year suggested.

Over in New Zealand, Skelton was labelled a “lump and a chump… just another Wallaby loser” by Kiwi rabble-rouser Chris Rattue, for deserting the Australian ship and going, it was assumed, for the money and a comfortable life.

It turned out that nothing could have been further from the truth. Skelton returned from England only two months later, ten kilos lighter and like one of the men in the before and after adverts.

In the words of Waratahs’ coach Daryl Gibson, Skelton came back to Sydney “match-fit… and ready to hit the ground running. He said he’d learnt a great deal around set-piece and the different aspects of “how to win” rugby. I think that’s been great for him and he is definitely coming back a better player, and in shape.”

(AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts)

The feeling at Saracens was entirely reciprocal. As Director of rugby Mark McCall put it:
“In a very short space of time here his contribution to the side was superb, he showed a real appetite to improve his game and he was very popular among all the players and staff. There’s still so much more to come from him, which is incredibly exciting for us…”

What could have happened, in the space of two short months, to convince Gibson that Will Skelton has reversed the trajectory of his career? What could have happened to convince the hard-nosed Saracens’ coaching staff of Skelton’s intrinsic value to the club moving forward – to the extent that they have offered him a two-year contract to return to England at the end of the current Super rugby season?

In the Saturday evening encounter between the Chiefs and Waratahs, Will Skelton gave us some concrete answers to those questions, and showed just how much exposure to a fresh Northern Hemisphere environment has improved his playing quality.

There was a new earnestness in his on-field attitude, and the lapses in concentration which so frequently resulted in cheap-shots and a terminal loss of discipline were gone.

The most remarkable single feature of Skelton’s performance was his work rate, and his accuracy and dominance related to that work-rate.

There was hardly a ripple on the surface of the media-friendly stats provided by Opta/ESPN, in which Skelton recorded no lineout wins and six runs for a grand total of three metres. Same old, same old – or so it seemed.

But scratching the surface, and comparing Skelton’s key performance indicators to the three other Tahs’ tight forwards who have been picked in Michael Cheika’s Wallaby squad for June – props Sekope Kepu and Tom Robertson and hooker Tolu Latu – and the result is very different. Here are the figures on attack.

That’s 21 bits of significant action, at least seven more than any of the Tahs’ front-rowers. Perhaps the most remarkable stat is however, the absence of mistakes – no turnovers committed on run or pass, and 42 per cent dominant ruck clearances, with no misses.

Skelton was a monster on the cleanout, able to drive out the best of the Chiefs’ jackals one-on-one ‘with extreme prejudice’, as they like to say in the U.S. Army! First on replacement number seven Mitch Karpik –

Then up-ending Anton Lienert-Brown…

Skelton also showed excellent, previously unheralded touch on the pass, bringing the ball to the line before releasing Israel Folau into the gap outside Liam Messam:

Skelton is sufficiently close and square to the line to fix defensive eyes, compress the drift and preserve the gap for Folau.

The Waratahs’ second try from a driving lineout also offered testimony to Skelton’s new-found addiction to work-rate and ‘playing through the tape’. It can be viewed on the highlight reel here at 55:14.

As the maul forms, Skelton is forming an imposing bulwark on the inside corner – one which the Chiefs recognise and attack, with Dominic Bird peeling Skelton out of the play at 55:22. I believe that that the Skelton-of-old might have quit at this point, but the new version gets back to work immediately, reloading in behind Tolu Latu at the back.

Their combined power over the right side is irresistible, with Skelton providing the finishing touch at 55:34.

On defence, Skelton also completed more tackles, and achieved more defensive disruptions than any other Tahs’ tight forward:

One of the most surprising aspects of the match was the way in which Will Skelton dominated the player who is generally considered the world’s best second row – the Chiefs’ Brodie Retallick – throughout the course of the game.

Skelton has mastered the use of the hold-up tackle during his time with Saracens, and used his great physical strength and leverage to manhandle Retallick in contact situations:

He either threw him backwards towards his own goal-line…

…or delayed release to the point where the ball was exposed to counter-attack by the likes of Michael Hooper

Or turned the ball over immediately…

Even at the cleanout, Retallick struggled to contain Skelton’s power and improved work-rate:

In this example an extra player, Chiefs’ tight-head prop Nepo Laulala has to be committed to protect Tawera Kerr-Barlow from Skelton’s attentions. In all of these instances, Skelton forced the Chiefs to accept a five-second delay or more in the recycling of possession.

It is probably an indictment of the Waratahs’ work-rate elsewhere that they were not able to make more use of the time Skelton was buying them to reorganise on D. At 14:05 on the highlight reel, Skelton has held up Retallick on the carry, Mike Hooper has attacked the (collapsing) ruck and you would think that the Tahs would be fully regrouped on the following phase.

Instead, #12 David Horwitz is still on the wrong side of Latu and Kepu and unable to prevent Aaron Cruden from running into the gap between the two front-rowers at 14:17, twelve seconds later.

Skelton’s will to do the unseen work – to recover, reload and stay in the game was highly impressive:

In the first frame Skelton is the slowest Tahs’ forward on the turn after the line-break is made, but by the second he is already back and present in the defensive line. At 2:25 he holds up Liam Messam for fully six seconds in the carry, which in turn creates the opportunity for Ned Hanigan and Latu to turn the ball over on the following phase.

Summary
Will Skelton’s dramatic improvement in the space of two short months at Saracens – off-field in the area of nutrition and conditioning, on-field in terms of work-rate, technique and attitude – raises a whole raft of questions about the relationship between the two Hemispheres.

How will the All Blacks, and the Kiwi Super Rugby sides below them, deal with a Lions tight forward unit containing potentially four of Europe’s champion club side – Mako Vunipola, Maro Itoje, George Kruis and Jamie George?

Will Brodie Retallick still be hailed as the world’s best second row after the Test series, and his personal duel with Itoje has finished?

The very best New Zealand coaches (Graham Henry, Wayne Smith and Steve Hansen) have found that international success came through the (frequently traumatic) gateway of European experience – can the Northern Hemisphere play the same role for Australian coaches like Stephen Larkham and Nathan Grey? Is the Australian rugby outlook too parochial?

For Australia, there is the additional question of being able to place their potential Test players with the best that Europe has to offer in respect of training and playing culture. Could a loan scheme, or a version of the sabbatical system be viable, in order to accelerate the learning curve of their tight forwards in particular?

Will Skelton will be available for the Wallaby World Cup effort in 2019, and his progress from now until then will throw many of these questions into sharper relief.

Belatedly, at 24 years of age, he has made a very good beginning. As the 19th century American philosopher William James once said, it is the attitude at the beginning which more than anything else, affects the chances of future success.