Why Brumbies star is becoming a pivotal figure in Eddie's RWC hopes - and the big blow to the Wallabies

It was the worst news at the worst time. In the final preliminary game before the start of Super Rugby Pacific, Western Force and Wallaby second-row Izack Rodda reinjured the same foot that had forced him to sit out the entirety of the 2023 international rugby season.

A scan to the foot revealed another fracture rather than mere bruising. At a stroke, Rodda’s rehab was ‘back to square one’. The fallout from that fateful trial match against Fijian Drua on Saturday 18^th February may yet scupper Rodda’s chances of representing his country at the World Cup.

If that is the scenario that unfolds in September, it will be a heart-breaking conclusion indeed for the ex-Queensland Reds lineout captain. Recurring injuries of this kind rarely heal without prolonged periods of rest and recuperation, and the mental fortitude required to survive both the physical discomfort, and the long spells of isolation associated with them, is extreme.

As Rodda himself explained to The Roar, after initial diagnosis of the problem:

“My ankle started to get a bit sore during the games, but I thought it was just minor.

“After having eight weeks off, further scans revealed it was a lot worse than we thought, which was a bit of a kick in the teeth.

“It really sucked. Thinking you’re only out for a certain amount of time, and that was coming around, and they [medical staff] were like ‘it’s no good, it’s going to be the rest of the year’, it was devastating.

“We all play to play the highest level. It did suck missing the full year of Test matches this close to a World Cup as well. It’s no fun being on the side-lines and watching the guys play because you want to be out there and doing your best. At the start it was a bit hard to take.

“Rugby’s tough mentally because it’s a rollercoaster – the highs are very high and the lows are very low. With the injury, you get pretty dark for a while because you’re doing it to try and get to the end goal. To have it all taken away [by] an injury hits you real fast. It takes a while, a good two months, to get your head around it and stop having those negative thoughts about it.”

Double down on that feeling of disappointment, and imagine how Rodda must be feeling now.

Lineout captaincy is an under-rated skill. Like a good goal-kicker, an expert lineout caller has to detach from the continuous blur of movement in a game and apply a mental ice-pack to the process of deciding the type of throw before it is made.

It is probably the single most complex area of the modern game. A lineout captain may have to factor in six basic formations, run from four segments of the field, with eight or more options from each. He has to co-ordinate with the halves for backline moves run off-the-top or off-the-drive. He may have to go to an alternate set of calls if he senses that the defence has done their homework and are reading the plays. He/she needs a super-cooled computer chip for a head in the heat of the action.

Make no bones about it, Rodda is the best at what he does in Australia. His Western force lineout enjoyed the highest combined rate of own-ball retention (85%) and stolen opposition throws (24%) among Australia sides in Super Rugby Pacific 2022. There are not many areas of the game where the Force are class leaders, but a Rodda-run lineout is one of them.

Now Eddie Jones has to plan for what will happen if Rodda’s fitness issues persist. Jed Holloway led the Wallaby lineout from number 6 on the end-of-year-tour but has not nailed down his spot in the starting side beyond question. If Jones wants to squeeze as much juice as possible out of Will Skelton at the World Cup (as he properly should), he needs a dominant lineout player alongside him in the second row

That is what made the performance of young Brumbies giant Nick Frost of particular significance against the Blues at the weekend in Melbourne. I broke down Frost’s outstanding Spring tour in this article at the start of the New Year.

In terms of sheer productivity, Frost was Australia’s big success at forward. He won half of all Wallaby lineout ball, played every minute of every match he started, and conceded only one penalty while involving himself in an unholy amount of action on the carry, at cleanout and in defence.

The Brumbies have sensibly gone a couple of steps further in 2023, starting the young tyro ahead of Darcy Swain and giving him the lineout captaincy to boot. It is the first time in his senior career that Nick Frost has run a professional set-piece, and if the experiment works it will solve one of Jones’ most irksome issues.

Here are the raw stats from the match for the Brumbies’ lineout:

The Brumbies were awarded the lion’s share of penalties in the game (19 out of 24) and that in turn meant they made the majority of throws into lineout. The Blues clearly did their homework at half-time, and Frost’s win rate dropped by 25% after the break. An overall return of 74% is not Rodda-standard, but the process of building a successful lineout captain takes time and patience.

The game did not start auspiciously for the Canberra set-piece, with the Brumbies losing their first lineout of the game:

In characteristic Frost fashion, the young man struck back immediately, blocking the support channel and making a crucial intercept following the subsequent break by Roger Tuivasa-Sheck:

That was the only lineout loss of the whole half for the Ponies, as the penalties and yellow cards against their opponents began to pile up, and the opportunities to drive the maul from close-range proliferated:

Although Frost is the Brumbies’ premier receiver at lineout time, their maul works best in the red zone when his second-row partner Caderyn Neville makes the catch, with Frost walling off the infield corner of the drive. In this instance, he is careful to stay level with Neville as the receipt is made to avoid a penalty for early obstruction, then the 6’9 giant just bullies Tom Robinson off the infield corner as the men from Canberra plough towards the goal-line.

Robinson suffered the same fate during the Brumbies second lineout drive score:

Frost starts level with Neville, then muscles his way directly in front of him. That means he is effectively ‘double-banking’ and sealing the Blues’ forwards, including number 6 Robinson, further away from the ball. There is no possibility of defensive interference in the course of a brisk trot to the goal-line.

In the second period, the Brumbies used their maul as a lever to release their 9 and 14 on a short-side raid:

Frost is once again using his body legally, to wall Robinson off from an area which he would naturally be defending.

The problems with lineout calling began to multiply for Frost after half-time. In fact, they were there in embryo at the very first set-piece of the game. The Brumbies’ coaches gave Frost a simple framework in which to work, with no movement by lifters up and down the line and the receipt a simple matter of timing between thrower (Lachlan ‘Noss’ Lonergan) and target.

After ‘oranges’, the Blues began to mirror that timing and pressure the delivery, winning no fewer than five turnovers against the throw:

Frost only went to a movement-based lineout on one throw out of the 23, and it was not a successful venture:

Frost fakes up the line to back-lift for Neville before button-hooking to boost Pete Samu at the tail, but the Blues have read the option ahead of time and pilfer comfortably in the air.

The lineout calling may still be a work in progress, but Frost certainly intimidated his opposite number Patrick Tiupulotu on the other side of the ball:

In the first instance, Frost shifts position after Tuipulotu makes the call, forcing a fatal hesitation and short-arm penalty to the Brumbies; in the second example he wins the ball straight up at the back against his rival. That had the domino effect of forcing the Blues to accept the majority of their ball from the ‘cheap’ option of Robinson at the front. Prices at the back of the lineout had rocketed sky-high, and were well out of reach for the men blue by then.

Summary

The starry rise of Nick Frost as an international second row forward has been boosted further in the early rounds of Super Rugby Pacific 2023. Frost did most of the jumping, carrying and defending in the Wallaby tight forwards on their Spring tour, and now he can add lineout captaincy to his list of duties.

With Izack Rodda out of action for the foreseeable future and his persistent foot injury rendering him a significant doubt for the World Cup, Eddie Jones needs someone who can call the shots with authority at lineout time. If Nck Frost can be that man, it may create more room for Will Skelton as his partner in the second row, and an alternative to Jed Holloway at number 6.

The process will undoubtedly take time. Frost’s lineout return dropped by one quarter after half-time and the Brumbies’ ability to drive the ball effectively fell like a stone along with it. The young Brumby was running a very simple timing scheme against the Blues on Melbourne’s Super Weekend, and the graft of more complex movement-based patterns will not take easily.

But that is where Australia stands at present. Jones is largely dependent on either the availability, or improvement of a handful of key individuals if the Australian bid for ‘Bill’ in September is to be backed up by something more than media bluff and bluster.

The lineout is the critical set-piece in the modern game, so Eddie’s fingers will be firmly crossed and he will not be passing under any ladders, or treading on any cracks in the pavement for the next six months. Far from it. Whatever he says for public consumption, privately he will know how many pieces need to fall into place before ‘Saturday suddenly comes’ and September swings around.