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Australia has two openside flankers who present a fascinating contrast.
Michael Hooper is a speed merchant. He’s a real burner. He can leave many a centre for dead. Give him a couple of metres and he’ll be sprinting past your halfbacks into the backfield, and he might even step you.
Hooper has amazing hair. I am not saying it is good. It is amazing. He leads Super Rugby in ‘hair touches’ with 5.3 per game.
He is tiny. To this, many Roarers will provide statistics and measurements. Spare yourselves the trouble. I have seen him from less than ten metres away, standing immediately next to Francois Louw and Willem Alberts. They were like the three bears and Hooper was not the Papa or the Mama Bear. He wasn’t even the Baby Bear.
Hooper is a superb athlete. He is so fast, his socks cannot remain up. He’s young and cocky and he sometimes gets on the wrong side of the referee. But he is so fit and talented that he captains the national team.
But will he be the skipper of the Wallaby ship when it sails for England this year?
Looming is the imposing figure of David Pocock. Pocock has no time for hair repair. He has, however, repaired the earthquake in Nepal while adopting four dozen refugees, cooled the seas’ temperatures with his conscience, delayed deforestation by 3.2 years, forced Saudi Arabia to pass marriage equality laws with just the clapping of his hands, fixed Zimbabwe, composed the first fair trade symphony, and eradicated hurtful sledging from all sporting codes in the Southern Hemisphere.
Pocock is too good to be true. He is strong, he is ethical, he is not a bad looking young man, he has causes to which he is true, and he probably can fix your car.
He might be the Wallaby captain. You won’t see him galloping in open space very often, although he played in the midfield in schools and has good hands. He is usually tied up in knots at a ruck, killing the quick ball, pilfering while being mauled, planting his powerful legs akimbo, refusing to move.
Pocock also is the conscience of world rugby. He turned Jannie du Plessis in for threatening to break his neck, he outed Jacques Potgieter as someone in need of speech training, and has saved several trees in danger. Most recently, he used the clap not heard around the world.
He was not born big. I have stood right next to him, and have a picture of us together, arm in arm, singing Kumbaya. Again, they list his height generously. But he has packed every bit of muscle on to his frame as is possible, and is still able to run and ruck for 80 minutes.
He can survive cleanouts that would put Hooper into the emergency room. Hooper could lap Pocock in a 40-metre race. Hooper would lose to Pocock in a sensitivity scrum. Pocock would lose to Hooper in a hair contest.
The fastest forward meets the nicest forward this weekend.
Who will stand tallest?
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.