Les Norton wrote:
The Eagle wrote:
It confuses me why people want to see him at loose and not Prop. They are basically the same position these days
It’s mandatory for a prop to make the hard yards up the middle. A loose can be more choosy, run wider, later on in the set etc. That’s not really the same
Absolutely this - whilst the modern 13 is very much still a 'middle', you expect your props to be taking the hard yards every set and in those situations where the defence is set and waiting for them - the suicide runs where at best you're going to make 8-10 meters and find your front with zero chance of anything else happening. Your 13 can do a bit of that work, but you'd prefer them playing on the back of one of those drives. So prop takes that hard run, tries to get a quick ptb, 13 then hits the guts on the back of that momentum.
There's a more varies role at 13. Just playing your 13 as another out and out prop reduces the variety in your play, as they just end up knackered. It's only a subtle difference, but makes a huge difference. A good example of this is Jason Taumalolo - he's an absolute beast, but is far more effective playing on the back of a Matt Scott hard yards type drive where the defence line has at least been bent than he is taking that hard yard drive himself. JT looks great when Matt Scott doesn't play, JT looks almost unstoppable when Matt Scott does play.
