Rugged toughness and powerful precision are key for Wallaby hookers: So which two play at the RWC?

“You look like that guy who won the Masters,” proclaimed the player on my tennis team with the worst eyesight. He has lost more points due to his own bad calls than anyone.

“Yes! Jon Rahm!” exclaimed the lady with perfect vision. “His body. Your body. Exact.”

The mole concurred. “Right! Just the body and the beard and the look. But with the hat on. Because you’re bald.”

Being compared to a famous person is tricky; I might wish for Jon Hamm and get the Rahm.

Jon Rahm is 1.88 m or 6 foot 2 and looks like one lunch from 110 kg. A hooker body, not a golfer type. He also celebrated his winning putt by jamming his putter into his crotch: if that isn’t a hooker act, what is?

One can imagine this Basque playing for Biarritz and nailing every lineout throw. And a hooker can go prop or flank or maybe even French centre; it is that kind of body.

In South Africa, John Smit became a prop, Deon Fourie became a flank, and Schalk Brits became a stockbroker. Hookers adapt. They can define a team.

Five months from the World Cup, most teams have sorted numbers two and 16. Do the Wallabies know their two best hookers?

An old coach told me hooker is the position for players who don’t know who they are, but he was a scrumhalf so what did he know about ‘one who hooks.’

Google “best hookers in the world” and you will find an opinionated list of the ten best red-light districts in the world. Just as in rugby, the French are building excellence: five are in France, where rugby’s biggest spectacle will be bared in five short months.

For non-rugby players, the position of hooker is an abrupt if cheap joke at first hearing.

The word hooker is usually traced to the wanton practices of the Army of the Potomac in the American Civil War, who had an abnormally large trailing camp contingent. They were commanded by General “Fighting Joe” Hooker.

This may not be true: it is the kind of context difficult to pin down. The French slang for “streetwalker” is ‘raccrocheuse,’ literally a ‘hooker of men.’

Rugby’s central forward, he who can make a lot of decisions and is charged with securing his team’s own possession at set pieces and mauls, used to hook a lot more than he does now. They had to absorb a tonne of pressure, lift one leg, find the ball on the ground in a maelstrom of legs and hook it back; they are also the last to emerge from that rugby bordello.

They do more braking than hooking now, with the advent of the brake foot, brought into save hookers from extreme loads on their necks.

Scrum feeds often hit a flank’s foot first on the way out or even nestle up to number eight’s big boot without even scaring the ‘hooker-braker.’ A hooker in a scrum can focus on scrummaging now; and many are very good at it: Bongi Mbonambi comes to mind.

(Photo by Getty Images)

The role of the hooker at scrum is inextricably linked to winning or not conceding penalties; as it is their connection to props that is targeted.

At lineout, they are not responsible for the call, and yet are always accountable, like a CEO. The dissonance between what a hooker does for five minutes of ruck clearing, tackling, jackaling, and then suddenly putting a fine touch on a delicate throw to win or lose the match: that is what makes the hooker such an interesting animal.

Unlike a towering lock or a gymnastic scrumhalf, a hooker can look ordinary sized. Even amongst the hookers themselves, there are the prop-like hookers and flankish rakes.

The size of hookers has not grown exponentially in the last 15 or so years. A quick look at the dimensions of top hookers past and present shows the two types of rake:

Big hooker types:

Steve Thompson 1.88 m 118 kg
John Smit 1.88 m 122 kg
Stephen Moore: 1.86 m 112 kg
Bismarck du Plessis 1.88 m 114 kg
Malcolm Marx 1.89 m 115 kg
Dan Sheehan 1.90 m 111 kg
Julian Montoya 1.83 m 113 kg
Sami Taukei’aho 1.83 m 115 kg

Medium hooker types:

Mario Ledesma 1.83 m 110 kg
Keith Wood 1.83 m 106 kg
Sean Fitzpatrick 1.83 m 105 kg
Raphael Ibanez 1.78 m 100 kg
Keven Mealamu 1.81 m 111 kg
Rory Best 1.80 m 105 kg
Dane Coles 1.84 m 110 kg
Codie Taylor 1.83 m 108 kg
Bongi Mbonambi 1.75 m 108 kg
Ken Owens 1.84 m 109 kg
Jamie George 1.78 m 108 kg
Julien Marchand 1.81 m 108 kg

The second-most capped Australian rugby union player is former captain Squeaky Moore. Who will be the next centurion hooker for the Wallabies?

Of the current Wallaby hopefuls, Jordan Uelese is ‘big and ugly’ according to coach Eddie Jones and 21-cap Tolu Latu is one of the heaviest hookers in top class rugby, but the rest fit in the modest sized camp:

Dave Porecki (10) 1.85 m 108 kg
Lachie Lonergan (4) 1.80 m 99 kg
Jordan Uelese (15) 1.89 m 116 kg
Folau Fainga’a (28) 1.78 m 106 kg
Tolu Latu (21) 1.75 m 123 kg
Alex Mafi (0) 1.77 m 107 kg

Porecki has an engine and is tidy at set piece. Lonergan gets around the park, but is he too small for a power game? Uelese will need to heal his body and his throwing. Fainga’a seemed never to improve his tosses to the tail, and also struggled to stay on the right side of the law. Latu and Mafi have not featured in Eddie’s plans, as yet.

David Porecki and Folau Fainga’a of the Wallabies run through drills during an Australia Wallabies Captain’s Run at Eden Park on September 23, 2022 in Auckland, New Zealand. (Photo by Hannah Peters/Getty Images)

None are yet in Sheehan’s class as a smooth, fast carrier, or Marx’s and Montoya’s ability to Pocock the pill, or George’s immaculate lineout throwing, but then again, Rahm was not seen a Major winner a few years ago. I saw George practicing his throws at the Aviva in Dublin, by standing 20y metres from the poles and then hitting the black dot on the crossbar seven, eight, nine times in a row. They seemed like two-foot putts on a practice green.

Porecki seems to have the most attributes of the modern hooker, but it is Latu who always seemed to have the highest upside: a Mealamu type, but unlike the All Black great, who played rugby at the lowest altitude ever seen, Latu is a bit high. But they are both tough bastards, in the best possible sense.

Porecki should emulate Marchand, who came through the academy of Toulouse, and has remained mobile without being musclebound.

Rugged toughness and powerful precision should be the key for the Wallaby hooker: like Rahm battering Augusta.