What position is historically your countries greatest strength?

First topic message reminder :

I read an article on Martyn Williams. In it he said that he learnt more about open side play in the 2005 Lions tour to NZ than in the rest of his career. he said he came up against world class open sides in every game he played. It got me thinking, each country plays the game slightly differently and contributes in it's own to the global game. What position does your country consistently produce quality players in?

In NZ, for my adult life, the open side has always been revered. I grew up with Graham Mourie, As a young man I witnessed Michael Jones explode onto the scene, more recently Richie McCaw holds a demigod like status. Any team that plays NZ has to combat a good 7. It's probably always been this way. It probably goes back to the rover developed by the Poneke club in the 19th century. We've always had key roving flankers from the days of Gallagher, the great Afro Kiwi Wilson , through to Waka Nathen and the modern heros. We've had heros in other positions, but 7's always seem to be special. Even in the current game, where players have to be multiskilled and positional skills tend to blend it's still a glamour position.

So what are your County's traditional strengths?

I can see where you're coming from nganboy but you lost all credibility with Alatini over Nonu. Even Maguer is a stretch but Alatini no rucking way!

BlueNote wrote:For Wales, the half-backs were traditionally awesome. At 10, Cliff Morgan, Dai Watkins, Barry John, Phil Bennett, Gareth Davies, Jonathan Davies. Also wingers.

I always think of Ireland having great 2nd rows, Scotland as having great back rowers and scrum-halves, England the back 5 of the scrum, NZ great back-row forwards, SA front-row forwards, Aus 10s (Ella, Lynagh...) and centres, France centres, props and 2nd rows, Argentina generally, the forwards.

Please please please do not include Gareth Davies in that list - he was not fit to lace the boots of the rest!!

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:Tough one, as others have indicated its prob backrow for Scotland where we have a strong heritage or else scrum half (R Laidlaw, A Lawson, D Morgan, G Armstrong, B Redpath, A Nicol, C Cusiter, M Blair, R Lawson, G Laidlaw and I'm expecting S Kennedy to join that lineage)

Thought that I should make a small revision to the above given today's news - we (Scotland and the Lions) been blessed with some standout loosehead props over the years - Sandy Carmichael, Ian 'Mighty Mouse' McLachlan, David Sole, and Tom Smith, and now we can add Ryan Grant to that list too. Similarly I had forgotten about our fullback heritage too, going all the way back to Ken Scotland, Andy Irvine, Gavin Hastings up to young Hoggy today

It has to be scrum half for Scotland. Certainly in my life time.

Whippersnapper!

Missionary

RubyGuby wrote:Missionary

Though, thinking about it, I didn't know sheep liked missio- err never mind







My 1st (contractor) job when I first moved to London saw me sitting in a pod of 3 desks with a Turk & a Tigger. The amount of sheep jokes the poor Llanelli received from the Leicester man were phenomenal - granted he gave as good as he got. Prudence meant I left it to my last day before I admitted my own cliche status - I come from New Zealand and grew up on a sheep farm

GunsGerms wrote:The best Irish players have been locks and centres:

McBride & Paul O'Connell

Gibson & O'Driscoll

Think you will agree those 4 should all be hall of famers.

Mike Gibson could trigger a whole new topic - not "What position is historically your countries greatest strength?"
but "Which player has played in the greatest range of positions?"

Over his 60+ caps, Gibson was:
Fly-half for Ireland & the Lions
Centre for Ireland & the Lions
Wing for Ireland (4 caps)

That was in the pre-sub days before cheap caps for filling-in a position for 5 minutes when the bench is emptied.

The only others I can think of with similar diversity over an extended number of starting selections would be Chris Patterson & Matt Giteau.
Arguably Patterson got shoe-horned in to various positions because of his exceptional goal-kicking rather being a first-choice in those positions.

Please don't suggest Austin Healey or James Hook as being in Gibson's class.

Cheers
DirtTracker

GunsGerms wrote:

dummy_half wrote:Guns

Wikipedia (which I know is not always entirely reliable) has Mrs Dayglo as being half Irish, so he'd have been eligible through the grandparent rule rather than parentage. As much Irish ancestry as English though (and less than his Italian ancestry).

Still has one of the finest full names ever in sport - Lawrence Bruno Nero Dallaglio.

Oh ok. He does have a good name alright. Not as good as Dan Darko Luger though.

I see your Dan Luger and Dayglo...and raise you one Tobias Gerald Albert Lieven Flood