The six most powerful Australian rugby union players of the past 18 years: Part 1

You know the type of player; smashing into contact, legs and arms going everywhere, and a wake of defenders left behind them.

Pure power with ball in hand, and a rock in defence who opposition players think twice about run into, or even remotely close to.

Defining the power player, or what you think of when asked about a power player is the easy part; the hard part is trying to name names. But that’s what I’ve been asked to do, to come up with the toughest Australian players in the past 18 years – essentially since professionalism.

To try and make that easier, I’ve enlisted the help of Rohan Smith, rugby league trainer and the former coach of the Bradford Bulls and Tonga.

For this exercise, there are a mix of players from Wallabies teams in the earlier days of professionalism – the players of ‘yesterday’ – and those from the modern generation. And it hasn’t been the easiest task, but nevertheless, here’s who I’ve come up with.

6. Israel Folau

Folau’s is a perhaps unconventional type of power, but it’s power nonetheless.

Another incredible athlete, but in a very different way to Polota-Nau and Pocock! It’s actually a little hard to describe where and how Folau’s power is derived, because he’s not like, say, a Kurtley Beale or a Beauden Barrett who can just flick a switch and boom, he’s gone.

Rather, Folau is more about timing; hitting precisely the right speed as he hits a gap, or accelerating onto the ball and then beating defenders with not much more than a slow wobble of the hips. He doesn’t possess a Benji Marshall sidestep, yet his footwork is very much a factor in his agility.

Aerially, he wasn’t rivalled during his rugby league days, made a decent fist of the 360-degree action in his brief flirtation in AFL, and there really aren’t too many better than him on a world stage in rugby, either.

It remains an ongoing frustration among Waratahs and Wallabies supporters that this obvious strength in his game isn’t used more widely, particularly when he seemed to reach new heights – both literally and figuratively – against Scotland in June.

The right-hand side of the field remains his patch in attack, as was also the case in the 13-man game, and though opposition teams know about the threat of his ability to break the tackle, or at the very least, absorb the contact and get an arm free for an offload, stopping it is a very different prospect altogether.

He’s emerged through the other side of a post-Rugby World Cup form slump in 2016 and the early parts of this season, but his attacking power game is returning to very healthy levels again.

(Pic: Tim Anger).

Rohan says: One of the most recruited players in either of the rugby codes – every team from Australia to New Zealand to the UK to France would have loved a crack at this guy! Luckily for the Waratahs, he seems to have found a home.

Folau is a graceful mover that can break tackles, jump over people and accelerate with power to evade would be tacklers. He has the strength to run through tackles, the evasion to swerve away and the strength to fend people off.

Anyone that can play professionally in three codes is a phenomenal athlete. Folau’s AFL experiment was still a success to me. To make it as far as being able to play professionally is a success, especially for a rugby league player!

Having trained in three sports, athletically he has developed all energy systems. A true power athlete.

5. Owen Finegan

That late 1990s-early 2000s group remains fresh in our memories because the Wallabies had genuinely world-class players across the park, and even on the bench on occasion.

And while Toutai Kefu stands out when you start thinking of power players, his backrow teammate for much of that time, Owen Finegan, wasn’t too far behind him when there was no room for subtlety.

A tall and rangy flanker, Finegan could also play a bit of lock, which made him a very handy bench player, though his best work was certainly done on the blindside of the ruck.

Finegan was a damaging runner who found the gain line with monotonous regularity, an excellent short-side defender, and had an inside-flick-pass combination with George Gregan which would prove too much for many a defensive alignment to handle.

Like Kefu, Finegan’s power game has a standout moment, too, coming in the 1999 Rugby World Cup against France in Cardiff.

At a lineout around 30 metres out from the France line, the ball coming straight down to Gregan, who headed to the open side before flicking that trademark ball back inside for Finegan trailing on the inside, just as the French defence parted before him.

Finegan brushed two defenders off and had nothing but open space in front of him with fifteen metres to run. “Go for the line, man,” ITV commentator John Taylor famously roared as Finegan crashed over with four French defenders either hanging off him.

It was Finegan at his powerful best.

4. Tatafu Polota-Nau

Of the current Wallabies playing group, Tatafu Polota-Nau is the standout for me in terms of the all-round power game.

His scrummaging is arguably the best in Australia at the moment, his defence around the ground and his ability to make tackles all across the ground is incredible, and he remains one of the stronger ball-carriers among the Australian forwards.

His defence actually caused a few issues earlier in his career, both for him as the tackler, and for ‘tacklees’ the world over. Having developed a questionable technique of ‘chopping’ across players below the knee, Polota-Nau would often finish with his head in a terrible position, but it also became hugely dangerous for the player being brought to ground.

With a history of concussion, Polota-Nau has also laudably vowed to donate his brain to science after he passes, so that the effects of his incidents can be studied further. But for the meantime, this doesn’t appear to have slowed him down, playing the game as hard as he always has.

(Supplied).

His move to the Western Force seems to have really revitalised him this season after 140-odd appearances for the Waratahs, and he’s kicked on to new levels of power-play precisely when the Wallabies needed him to, just as now-former skipper Stephen Moore rapidly approaches the end of his career.

Rohan says: Hard shoulder. When his shoulders hit, ball carriers stop, often in chopping, bone rattling tackles.

With his head down and burrow technique, opposition players can’t get underneath him, and launching to dive on loose balls and then getting up to carry the ball shows great power.

It would have been great to see Polota-Nau lift in the gym, although I remember him on a clip a few years ago saying his mental strength had more to do with his success than his physical!

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