Planet Rugby’s Greatest Professional XV: Middle lock
As professional rugby reaches its 25th anniversary and with time to reflect on those incredible years, we decided it’s time to look at the greatest players we’ve seen grace the pitches and screens of the world.
Over the next 15 days, we will give you our take on the four best players in each position, together with our choice for the Planet Rugby Professional XV.
You’ll have the chance to vote for yours and we will publish the readers’ team on the 16th day, together with some of the opinion comments from our readers and on social media.
The players will be listed traditionally, starting at 15 to 9 then 1 to 8.
The players are judged on their contribution to the pro era only. As a default we have only considered players that played 50% of their time or more in the professional era.
We have also taken into consideration the success they enabled for their team together with individual records, leadership skills, and overall contribution to the wider ethos of the sport and rugby in their home country.
We are well aware some greats haven’t made the cut but believe us when we say the debate needed around the office to get to this shortlist was exhaustive and not without some heated emotion!
Planet Rugby’s Greatest Professional XV: Middle lock
Nominees:
Fabien Pelous (118 caps, 8 tries)
John Eales (86 caps, 2 tries, 2 World Cups)
Sam Whitelock (117 caps, 6 tries, 2 World Cups)
Victor Matfield (127 caps, 7 tries, 1 World Cup)
More giants of the game today as our middle jumpers total 448 caps between them. Despite much thought, Maro Itoje misses out by a whisker, as do giants of the engine room like Lood de Jager, Franco Mostert, Paul O’Connell, James Horwill and George Kruis. But every part of the professional era is covered as is every skill-set in the game, with Eales providing a handy kicking option. We believe our quartet is the best of the best we’ve seen.
Fabien Pelous is perhaps a forgotten figure in rugby, but his impact on the French game was every bit as important as that of Martin Johnson or Eales. Another titanic leader, the massive man from Toulouse was noted for fantastic technical detail in his tight work and rampaging runs in the loose. A converted number eight, his first cap came in 1995 against Romania, and he went on to add a further 117 before his international retirement in 2007.
Despite four Grand Slams with France, World Cup success bypassed Pelous, with disappointment in the 35-12 final defeat at the hands of Australia in 1999 followed by a semi-final loss to England in 2003. France hosted in 2007 but Pelous was again frustrated to defeat by England in the semi-finals, calling time on his international career following the tournament. The day after the 2007 World Cup final, Pelous was honoured with the International Rugby Press Association Special Merit Award. After 118 Tests, with 42 as captain, three Six Nations wins, two Heineken Cups and two Top 14s, Pelous retired following Toulouse’s defeat to Munster in the 2008 Heineken Cup Final.
John Eales proves locks can do anything they want to. Nicknamed “Nobody”, as in “Nobody’s Perfect”. A goal-kicking, lineout winning handling second-row, Eales was light years before his time, providing the template of mobility that set the standard for the likes of Brodie Retallick, Itoje and Alun Wyn Jones to follow. His footballing highlights included a 45 metre drop-goal for his local club which led his Queensland coach John Connolly to offer him the kicking tee and Eales went on to boot 164 Test points, including the last-minute penalty that won the 2000 Bledisloe Cup.
But it was in the lineout where the huge Eales made the biggest mark, one memorable day against Wales he and Rod McCall taking 28 catches against his opponents’ two, the biggest ‘cleaning out’ in Test rugby history. Mere stats do not do Eales justice though; he, like Johnson and Pelous, was pivotal in leading his country through the transition of professionalism, but to his credit the big Queenslander never forgot the spirit of the amateur game. A great leader, he lifted the Rugby World Cup in 1999, after former Wallabies coach Greg Smith gave him the armband in 1996. Eales skippered his country 55 times, putting him eighth on the all-time list. He was, indeed, perfect.
Sam Whitelock is 6’8″ and 120kgs of prime Kiwi beef. A double try scoring debut against Ireland off the bench, an impressive 2010 Tri-Nations series and several strong performances on their Grand Slam-winning tour of Europe in November 2010 saw Whitelock rewarded with a place in the 30-man squad for the 2011 World Cup where he went on to form a contrasting second-row partnership with Brad Thorn as New Zealand won the tournament for the second time.
Four years of excellence followed and in 2012 he partnered Retallick for the first time, forming a partnership that has seen New Zealand to a further World Cup in 2015 and to the semi-final where England ended Kiwi hopes of a third successive win, the first Rugby World Cup match Whitelock had ever lost in eight years. In April 2019, Whitelock confirmed his commitment to New Zealand Rugby and the Crusaders, signing on to 2023, the big Crusader clearly demonstrating the desire to be the first three-time Rugby World Cup champion in history.
Victor Matfield was a professor of the lineout. One of the most technically fastidious forwards you’re likely to encounter, his partnership with Bakkies Botha is arguably the finest and most effective international rugby has ever seen. 2001 saw Matfield’s first cap as he made his Test debut against Italy, with the Blue Bull going on to help the Springboks’ rebuilding programme in 2004 and 2005, when he made the five-man shortlist for the IRB World Player of the Year.
Matfield’s lineout work was not passive; he was the art-poacher, a master at reading opposition throws and, a key component in the Springboks’ 2007 World Cup- winning squad, he won the man-of-the-match award in the final for his brilliant work in the tight, picking off six steals from the under-pressure English throw. A towering Lions series in 2009 led to a degree of disappointment in 2011 as South Africa were dumped out in the World Cup quarter-finals by a James Horwill-inspired Australia. In 2015, an aging Matfield saw him feature heavily off the bench and his final international game was a 24-13 victory to gain the World Cup bronze medal against Argentina as he came on as a second-half substitute to bid farewell to international rugby.
Although it’s hard to ignore the stellar claims of Matfield, leadership and spirit of rugby are also key considerations in choosing our winner. We therefore believe that the perfect John Eales was the greatest of all middle jumpers.