What is a "specialist 7" . Is it essential or is too much importance placed on it?

So much debate rages about this position...whats your opinions?

Not essential if you have a hooker or another player who is effective at the breakdown. Having guys who will tackle, hit rucks, jump at the line-out and carry well is far more important in my position. Having said that, I personally prefer having a genuine '7' in teams that I play for and support, but only if the other functions required are covered by your other back row players.

Define the skills expected from a "specialist 7". I suspect that these would change over time - largely to reflect the world leader in that shirt at the time.

Too often I think people concentrate on too small a subset of skills - then demand that their 7 possess these, ignoring anything else.

So I would say that fans place far too much emphasis on the notion of a "specialist 7" rather than team balance.

Richie McCaw has shone in large part due to his ability but in equally large part due to his fellow back rowers ove rthe years.

Sam Warburton can do what he does because of the work done by Faletau, Lydiate, Jenkins, Jones etc

Neil Back would have been a shadow of the player he turned out to be without Dayglo, Hill, Johnson etc.

And the list goes on and on, through Kronfeld, Jones, Winterbottom, Rives, Slattery, Taylor etc. All of the consumate 7s in their day, but would they be deemed specialist 7s by todays criteria.

I confess that i like the idea of specialists in the backrow, altho will readily admit that it is really the balance of the backrow that is important, as other have indicated above, and indeed that there are certain desirable attributes of a 'specialist' 7 which can be equally well covered in other positions

No I don't think so. It's about getting the right balance in the backrow.

Vietgwent revisited I agree with all that.

VietGwentRevisited wrote:Define the skills expected from a "specialist 7". I suspect that these would change over time - largely to reflect the world leader in that shirt at the time.

Too often I think people concentrate on too small a subset of skills - then demand that their 7 possess these, ignoring anything else.

So I would say that fans place far too much emphasis on the notion of a "specialist 7" rather than team balance.

Richie McCaw has shone in large part due to his ability but in equally large part due to his fellow back rowers ove rthe years.

Sam Warburton can do what he does because of the work done by Faletau, Lydiate, Jenkins, Jones etc

Neil Back would have been a shadow of the player he turned out to be without Dayglo, Hill, Johnson etc.

And the list goes on and on, through Kronfeld, Jones, Winterbottom, Rives, Slattery, Taylor etc. All of the consumate 7s in their day, but would they be deemed specialist 7s by todays criteria.

 

A good seven used to be a shadow on the shoulder of the backs when a break was made. Not too long ago a good seven was a player that managed to get right in the face of the oposition half backs at every possible opertunity. Now a good seven is a man who either kills or wins ball at the breakdown. To be fair these are all very different skill sets.

I don't think there is too much importance placed on it.
7's basically rules the breakdown (making up their lack of power with great technique) and are tackling machine. They tends to have great rugby brains too.

That said on wet conditions i would like my back row to be more powerfull at the expense of a genuine openside.

Much like a winger a 7 should first have BUCKETS of pace. His effectiveness in all aspects of the game will be determined by his pace, skillset, physique, mindest etc.
But foremost of these for me is pace. You can have all the talent in the world but if you're too slow to use it in the right areas when it is needed then you should be a centre or a 6  

Submachine wrote:Much like a winger a 7 should first have BUCKETS of pace. His effectiveness in all aspects of the game will be determined by his pace, skillset, physique, mindest etc.
But foremost of these for me is pace. You can have all the talent in the world but if you're too slow to use it in the right areas when it is needed then you should be a centre or a 6  

McCaw has been lacking in pace for quite some time and yet he has still been the premier 7 in the world.

Would McCaw not still be considered pacy in the NH compared to the lumbering giants many of us use? Quick between the ears as well which is a great help

TJ wrote:Would McCaw not still be considered pacy in the NH compared to the lumbering giants many of us use?  Quick between the ears as well which is a great help

The past few years I have seen him, he has looked very slow for a flanker. Pace is certainly not one of his strong suits nowadays.

Quick between the ears - definitely yes, and that is why he is able to deal with his lack of pace.

Rory_Gallagher wrote:

TJ wrote:Would McCaw not still be considered pacy in the NH compared to the lumbering giants many of us use?  Quick between the ears as well which is a great help

The past few years I have seen him, he has looked very slow for a flanker.  Pace is certainly not one of his strong suits nowadays.

Quick between the ears - definitely yes, and that is why he is able to deal with his lack of pace.

But if he didn't have the pace to start with he would not have played 7. Obviously years of experience and excellence count for something.
But I would argue that he doesn't play the out and out groundhog role anymore that he made his reputation on. Like O'Driscoll the key to his consistent quality has been the ability to adapt to changes in the laws and more importantly the changes to his physical abilities as he got older. For example although he might be a touch slower he is way more powerful and much more clever.
The new guy (Kane?) would be more in the typical 7 mould.

When I think of the best 7s of the last decade or so, I would struggle to describe any of them as having "BUCKETS of pace". Maybe we would have different lists in mind.

McCaw
Dusautoir
Back
Burger
Smith
Waugh
Williams
Betsen
Pocock

I'd say every one of those guys in their prime was the fastest man in the pack they played in. Williams, Back and Betsen in particular were lightning.

We clearly have quite different ideas about what "BUCKETS of pace" and "lightning" mean.

A traditional 7 - I think McCaw, Neil Back, Keith Gleeson, Kronfeld, Jones, Martyn Williams - A clever, quick player who is first to the breakdown and plays like an auxiliary back in attack - aggressive in defence and makes a lot of tackles.

A classic 7 to me takes and gives rather than take the tackle - McCaw is brilliant at this - a link man rather than a carrier. The best 7's you barely even notice.

Is it essential to have one? - no but it certainly helps to have this sort of player if you want to play an expansive game. The ABs rarely take the field without one so that says a lot really...

My old mantra, "you don't have to be quick, just set off before anyone else!"
This pretty much defines what a good 7 is - quicker in the top 2 inches than anyone else.
Legends of the position such as McCaw, George Smith, Back, Hill etc were never the quickest over 20 yards, but they determined how quick your ball was and how slow the opposition ball was. This pretty much defines how the game goes. These guys were just always there, always in and around the ruck causing havoc not with sheer size/strength/speed, but knowing how to best affect any given situation to benefit their team.
This is generally a characteristic that is difficult to coach.

rodders wrote:A traditional 7 - I think McCaw, Neil Back, Keith Gleeson, Kronfeld, Jones, Martyn Williams - A clever, quick player who is first to the breakdown and plays like an auxiliary back in attack - aggressive in defence and makes a lot of tackles.

A classic 7 to me takes and gives rather than take the tackle - McCaw is brilliant at this -  a link man rather than a carrier. The best 7's you barely even notice.  

Is it essential to have one? - no but it certainly helps to have this sort of player if you want to play an expansive game. The ABs rarely take the field without one so that says a lot really...  

Rodders
You missed one other attribute all the great 7s have - a willingness to bent the rules (especially although not exclusively at the breakdown) to maximise their team's chances. McCaw obviously has been the finest exponent of this for the last decade, but Neil Back was probably an even bigger cheat; he had a scrum half's annoyingness in a forwards body  

I think the role of a specialist seven is now shared by many players.

Even though Louw has made a difference to SA, when you consider Coenie Oosthuizen, Bismarck du Plessis and Vermeulen has been as successful at pilfering in the forward pack, then I believe the balance is shifting.

Pocock as an example is a pilferer of note, yet I believe having a specialist with a limited skillset is not the way to go.

You need more from a 7 than just pilfering, the game is faster, there are more breakdwns than ever before, and a seven cannot get to them all, at best a specialist 7 can contest every 2nd breakdown. At the cheetahs they have been training to get the backline pilfering as well, who ever is the next man in now goes for the steal, no matter his position.

It works

Agreed the number 7 has to be a canny bugger and mccaw makes up for his lack of pace these days by being offside alot of the time and never getting pinged for it, his ability to read the game is awesome as well. One of my favourite 7's of all time was Olivier magne, he was more of a back in a forwards body, popping up in the line, amazing pace, great hands.

dummy_half wrote:

rodders wrote:A traditional 7 - I think McCaw, Neil Back, Keith Gleeson, Kronfeld, Jones, Martyn Williams - A clever, quick player who is first to the breakdown and plays like an auxiliary back in attack - aggressive in defence and makes a lot of tackles.

A classic 7 to me takes and gives rather than take the tackle - McCaw is brilliant at this -  a link man rather than a carrier. The best 7's you barely even notice.  

Is it essential to have one? - no but it certainly helps to have this sort of player if you want to play an expansive game. The ABs rarely take the field without one so that says a lot really...  

Rodders
You missed one other attribute all the great 7s have - a willingness to bent the rules (especially although not exclusively at the breakdown) to maximise their team's chances. McCaw obviously has been the finest exponent of this for the last decade, but Neil Back was probably an even bigger cheat; he had a scrum half's annoyingness in a forwards body  

Ah yeah that's important too....

Olivier Magne! That was another I was thinking about but couldn't remember his name! Good man Chris.

I think a natural 7 is like a natural scrum half - you are either one or your not .... you need to be a right sneaky bollix, a few steps ahead of everyone else especially the ref.....

No Natural/Specialist 7 is remotely close, in skill levels and general all-round rugby intelligence, to a 6.5

It's been discussed too many times before.  A 7 is a purebred and therefore liable to infections and can be frail.. a 6.5 is a mongrel

QED

That's just because Ireland invented the archtypical 6.5 in David Wallace - one brother was a prop and the other a winger .... young David ended up with the attributes of both....

rodders wrote:That's just because Ireland invented the archtypical 6.5 in David Wallace - one brother was a prop and the other a winger .... young David ended up with the attributes of both....

Fortunately it wasn't the pace of the prop and the size and strength of the winger... 

Every player touted as a specialist 7 is different and actually specialises in a different area. Generally they win ball at the breakdown but that's not that specialist. The only consistent difference between a 6, 6.5, 7, Left and Right flanker, "unique flanker" etc is that some people are obsessed with the exact role a player with a number on his back should play despite any evidence. The best flankers, like McCaw, S Burger and Dusautoir, are all rounders, the thing that stands out about them is that regardless of the style they choose to play at any time they excel at all aspects of the game

Cj

Mostly agree with your comment. Take as an example Neil Back and Martin Williams as two examples of supposed specialist 7s playing in the NH at pretty much the same time. One similarity is that both were relatively under-sized, so couldn't rely on power against the big guys. However, for me, they displayed rather different strengths:
Back was principally a breakdown specialist - first to the ball in the ruck (unless Richard Hill got their first) and the guy that would control the ball at the back of a driving maul . Could be quite a useful support player, but didn't often look for the ball in open play.
Williams was at his best almost as an auxilliary centre - one of the great support players by tracking the ball carrier, and a much better open field carrier than Back ever was. Still pretty effective at the ruck (although I would certainly argue that Back was better at making a nuisance of himself) but I don't remember him being that involved in mauls.

Both excellent players in their own way, but Back more suited to a tighter game plan (as both Leicester and England excelled at in the early 00s) and Williams to more open play (which Wales were particularly successful with for their first GS in 05).

Of course the corollary to that is whether they played the ways they did because of their respective teams, or did the teams play that way because of the skillsests of their 7s?

Oh, and one final point - the finest exponent of the 'specialist 7' skillset in the NH over the last 5 years?
Brian O'Driscoll.

Warburton & Tips versus Croft and Robshaw. You decide.

The Saint

Add to that England playing another 6.5 type flanker at 8 against Faletau, and having a battle to understand what the ref wanted, and you do have the makings of a drubbing. The penalties we conceded in the scrum and the subsequent territorial dominance of Wales was a big feature of that game (in the same way that our crushing of Ireland's scrum in the previous 6Ns was a key to dominating that game)

Most England fans think Robshaw actually did a pretty good job in that game, but got not much help form the rest of his pack. Had we had the first choice of Wood at 6 and Morgan at 8 I think we'd have been more competetive (probably not enough to change the result, but not as far away as we were that day).

Oh, and playing Mike Brown on the wing played a bit of a part as well - good player, but not quick enough to defend against a top class winger when left with an overlap.

He was dummied by a 7 too  

That it true. Anyway, Wales won that match, well done Wales. Don't think it was a real indicator that Robshaw isn't a specialist 7 though as Wales played 2 "specialist 7s" with entirely different games

Robshaw isn't a 'specialist' 7 though, just like Croft isn't really a 6

I agree but only because neither number has any meaning

The important thing is balance, which is something England has seemed to struggle with.

A back row of Warbs/Tips/Faletau or Lyd/Warbs/Faletau has proven to work well - becuase they work well together.

Just wish we had more 8s though

munkian wrote:The important thing is balance, which is something England has seemed to struggle with.

A back row of Warbs/Tips/Faletau or Lyd/Warbs/Faletau has proven to work well - becuase they work well together.

Just wish we had more 8s though

I absolutely agree. However, in some matches with all our players fit we have found a good balance, but losing Morgan affected us more than it ought to have.

Good 'specialist' 8s are rather rare these days, you had to nick yours off us  

I'm just glad Faletau is imortal  

munkian wrote:Good 'specialist' 8s are rather rare these days, you had to nick yours off us  

I'm just glad Faletau is imortal  

You jinked him you idiot you gone and blew it up! dam you dam you.

I think the principle role of a flanker in general is to be an absolute nuisance at the breakdown and to tackle tackle tackle. For the specific roles of blindside and openside it is really dependant on the coach, for example with my youth team, I very rarely play 7 despite playing in Richie McCaw manner (well as near as us mortals can) i.e. nuisance at the breakdown, but I played at 6 as my coach preferred to have a slightly quicker player who would link up with the backs more, But as people said it is not just about the role of each player it is how they balance and compliment each other, which is why some of us rate the likes of Lydiate so much despite him not having the best overall ability of say a blindside in the mould of O'Brien, it is because his tackle technique allows a jackler such as warbuton to be straight over the ball, and potentially win a turnover or a penalty