Prince Buster wrote:
loose forwards are extinct, prop is a bygone name, they are all middles
I disagree. If they were extinct then the team sheet would reflect that. Middles was a term that largely got introduced due to 6 again and speeding the game up.
A lot of people expected the large props to fade away with the game expecting to speed up.
The traditional large props have made a comeback and big packs are now again very much in demand.
Take Pits and Kay last season… played at Loose but you wouldn’t have them near taking the first drive in from a kick off. That’s a props job who generally have the size and physicality to do so.
You can call them middles as a blanket but the different demands apply within that scope and these are defined by their positions (prop, loose, hooker).
Middle seems to me like a NRL term that some are trying to copy. May be wrong on that though.