Exactly. And without some extra skill, he is too small. The big blokes will always bounce him around.
I feel for him but that's rugby life.

He'll be the best player in a team like Fev (no offence to those players) and would do a decent job in the middle 8s but we are trying to get above that now.

I'd concur - he has more bottle than Express Dairies, and his effort is always 100%. Despite all that, he's just not effective enough for where we are now.

Shame he hasn't been able to reinvent himself in a position more suited to his physical attributes - he'd be devastating as a hooker, in the mould of McShane or McIllorum, but he doesn't seem to have the nouse.

How do we know? His instructions so far seemed to have been to run it in as hard as he can, which usually ends up with him being lifted up and planted on to his back. I love his effort and commitment, but I've never seen him in a ball distribution role, but I agree that if he had that in his game, he'd be a great hooker. Strong, fast and fit.

We don't - but you'd assume that Chester or a.n other coach will have recognised his limitations as a forward and tried to reinvent him?

That debates been running for years. And although I'm a great believer that no one is born to a position it's probably to late now.

As someone pointed out the last time we had this discussion he's been let down by the coaching staff. I'm not sure he'd ever have made a hooker, but a ball playing highly mobile No13, that could possibly have worked.

why are we talking about the role of a hooker as if it still exists, its just another player within the scrum that isn't as tall as the two players either side, saying that I've seen a few taller ones squeeze in. to me its another play maker caught up in a cuddle

That's the style snowiepops, keep it nice and simple

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.