Jeff Probyn: Taller props are causing more front row injuries

Last week Nick Cain asked where are all the tighthead props – when what he could have asked is, why are so many getting injured and forced to take time out of the game?
Dan Cole is just the latest in a long line of props having to take time out due to injury and I am sure he won’t be the last.
To a certain extent many of the injuries that now haunt the front row are in part due to changes in the emphasis that have been put on scrums and lineouts.
Over the past few years, scrums have been a total mess with endless collapsing and reforming, the allowance of crooked feeds and virtually unfathomable penalty awards by referees on an ad-hoc basis which undermines the value of the scrum as a viable attacking platform.
Because of this, the lineout with its structured calls and lifting gives a better certainty of regaining possession allowing coaches to control and plan attack and defence plays.
The knock-on effect of this has been a tendency to pick forwards better suited to the demands of the lineout than the scrum, which has seen the height of tighthead props slowly increasing from around 5ft 10ins (178cm) when I was playing, to current squad tightheads Dan Cole 6ft 3in (190cm), David Wilson and Henry Thomas 6ft 2in (188cm).
The simple explanation for this height increase is the rise of the lineout as an attacking option, the taller your lifters the higher you can lift your ‘jumper’ and the greater your chances of winning the lineout contest, but it is more subtle than that.
There is a sub-text of intimidation because bigger players appear more imposing and threatening to opposition and that old adage ‘a good big one will always beat a good little one’, still echoes in the minds of all.
This mentality has pervaded selections and player development, so much so, that height is one of the factors that come into play when identifying possible players and choosing what position they play plus who gets the contract and who doesn’t.
The idea that players are developed as utility players who are then ‘slotted’ into whatever position is required because of how big they grow, may seem a little far fetched but it is very much the case with the front row.
If, as a young player, you are ‘identified’ as a potential front row player it is highly unlikely you will be chosen as a prop if you are less than 6ft and will be ‘encouraged’ to become a hooker – for example Exeter‘s Luke Cowan-Dickie.
This restriction has encouraged a whole generation of props who are not best suited to playing in the front row of a scrum, a place where the length of back and limbs can simply make the difference between being injured or not.
That was fine until the recent change in engagement sequence at the scrum, reiterating the need for the specialised abilities of front row players like props who can hold a scrum in a stationary position and hookers who can strike for the ball.
Of all the positions in the game, the front row is the most reliant upon experience-based knowledge learned over years of games played against varied opposition.
Each position requires a very different skill-set when faced with different opposition. It is important that players play in the front row from as early as possible to build up a catalogue of knowledge for every eventuality.
I remember my early days of club rugby as a 16-year-old playing against old men of 30 who would relish the opportunity to hand the boy, who was running all over the field in the loose and packing with almost text book technique, all sorts of pain as they taught him what being a front row forward was really all about.
I learned more in those early club games than any coach or manual could ever teach me, with much of it passed on over a beer in the bar after the final whistle.
Those lessons have stood me well in a career that has so far spanned over 46 years (you never retire as a prop forward, you just have longer gaps between games!) but the young players today do not have the chance to play in the elite adult game until they reach 19 and then only if they have written permission.
What this means is many of the current elite players have little or no experience of playing in what I would describe as a proper scrum.
Anyone who has played only at the elite level over the past ten years would have only ever experienced scrums where the ‘hit’ was king and the ball was virtually put into the second row, meaning that the hookers had never actually hooked a ball and props had never had to hold a level and stationary scrum.
Much as I admire Tom Youngs for his ball-carrying ability and his rapid rise to England and the Lions, I must admit I still find it hard to understand how an international hooker could say he was worried about having to strike for his ball.
That level of inexperience when coupled with the new engagement sequence is liable to create a legacy of injuries similar to that suffered by Dan Cole and further reduce the number of front rows available for selection.