Andy Goode is discussing how strength has displaced skill as the foremost requirement in modern academies when he delivers a mightily depressing yet prescient snapshot of the culture within the English game. “I have played with players who have told me they are happiest if they don’t touch the ball once during a game; they just want to smash people.”
It was a curious coincidence that in last weekend’s round of Champions Cup games Goode (aged 34) was among the standout performers for English clubs alongside fellow greybeards Brad Thorn (39), Nick Easter (36) and Charlie Hodgson (34). And yet rugby is supposed to be no country for old men. After all, this is a sport in which size, speed and strength are worshipped as the holy trinity at the altar of youth, and the by-product of breeding players possessing all three qualities is ever shortening careers.
Neither Leicester second-row Thorn or Harlequins No 8 Easter would beat many of their younger contemporaries on a bench press, nor would either of the fly-half pairing of Goode and Hodgson win a footrace. Yet there remains a huge difference between gym strength and rugby strength as well as spotting a gap and knowing when to attack it. While all these players have taken different career paths, none of them started out in a conventional academy and it is worth speculating whether they would have enjoyed such long, successful careers had they done so…………… see more at :- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/premiership/11291703/Andy-Goode-and-Nick-Easter-Young-players-are-too-much-brawn-not-enough-brain.html
