Quote: Levrier "Possibly, but I am more familiar with the growth spurt being upwards rather than outwards. Given that professional players generally have their diet specially produced for them, and that a player not sticking to their diet would suffer the wrath of the coaching staff, it would seem more likely that this is part of the plan. My worry is that he is being set up to fail by being brought up to size too quickly.
You are right that we tend to go with smaller forwards but as a whole players are getting more massive. This is partly because South Sea Islanders are seen as perfect body types for the game, unfortunately Wigan is not far enough South and we produce a lot of short stocky forwards. This is possibly Darwinian as those too tall were unable to work down the mine and therefore were too weak to breed. This could explain why the Northern Union decided to get rid of line outs.'"
Tall people to weak to breed? Short, stocky types absolute fertility machines? This forum's gone a bit 'Handmaid's Tale' all of a sudden!
