I would certainly be more thrilled at Max signing long term than Sam Williams for another year or two.

I am not saying Williams is a poor player, he has more talent than most would dream for but I have been excited by the performances of Jowitt. I am really pleased to see that his link play and long passing game is obviously at a standard that suggests he may well be a 5/8th in the future.

My favourite 6 was Tony Martin- people raise their eyebrows at this, but his passing game was strong, his rugby brain was complete- two qualities Max certainly has.

I think the role you are talking about snowie, hooker in a scrum, has for a long time been defunct. You might have noticed last Saturday that on occasion Fifita was the middle man in the front row of the scrum, yes, I kid you not. The way scrums are "fed" nowadays it is virtually impossible for the non-feeding team to "hook" the ball.

When I think of hookers now I think of the acting dummy half, key to ball distribution and quick scoots from the ruck during sustained periods of the game. Parcell was a good example last Saturday of how to execute that role well.

not seen any hooker play the ball out of a scrum in years they are just play makers behind the play the ball

I hate the lazy scums, seems half the time they can't be bothered to bend down or even link it together

See wildshot's post - hooking out the scrum may be defunct, but there are plenty of other skills a specialist hooker brings to the modern game; any of the players I listed would get a gig in any SL team, for that very reason.

Yes your right, back in the day where snowie's talking about the hooker was only as good as his blindside prop, he was the one who had the biggest hand in making the hooker successful.