Planet Rugby’s Greatest Professional XV: Outside centre
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: Outside centre
Nominees:
Brian O’Driscoll (141 caps, 47 tries)
Conrad Smith (94 caps, 26 tries, 2 World Cups)
Jonathan Davies (87 caps, 16 tries)
Tana Umaga (74 caps, 36 tries)
Our quartet of outside centres boast 136 tries and an incredible 396 Test caps between them. The contrast of styles is vast; the abrasion of Umaga, the vision of Smith, the enablement of Davies and the complete skill-set of O’Driscoll. One of the positions that was hardest to shortlist, we can find no place for the World Cup winning quartet of Will Greenwood, Stirling Mortlock, Jaque Fourie or Dan Herbert. Nevertheless, as with all of our selections, we believe our four stars are the very best of the era.
Brian O’Driscoll is a rugby institution. Fourth in the all-time cap list (indeed the most capped back in history) O’Driscoll fused pace and sidestep with devastating defence, first class leadership and an ability over the ball in the jackal that would put many a flanker to shame. Above all, BOD’s rugby IQ was the stuff of legend, his vision and presence in the green shirt setting the standard for every Irish player to aspire to from now to eternity.
In his first Lions series in 2001, his exploits were immortalised in song, with every fan in the stadium singing ‘Waltzing O’Driscoll’ as the Leinster legend tore Australia apart in the opening Test in Brisbane with a 40-metre solo try. O’Driscoll will probably regret that Ireland’s record in Rugby World Cups didn’t quite meet his own personal standards, but there’s no doubt that in the 141 caps he gained, every single performance was one of the highest quality.
Conrad Smith was an artist. Slight of build but fleet of foot, he would go almost unnoticed in presence until the big play where his passing, footwork or boot consistently unlocked the most robust defences. By Kiwi standards, Smith was a modest try scorer at international level, but few players have created more scores for those around him.
A qualified Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand, his intellect allowed him to become archetypal ‘enabler’ for a team brimmed with attacking threat. Like Aaron Mauger before him, Smith was a complete footballer and his 50-cap partnership with Ma’a Nonu showed a contrast of bulldozer and bullfighter that enabled the All Blacks to win two consecutive Rugby World Cups.
Jonathan Davies has been gracing the 13 channel of the international game for 11 years and is still to this day one of the best exponents of his art at international level. His partnership with Jamie Roberts bore fruit at both Welsh and Lions level, offering a total contrast of styles as Davies benefitted from the space the thundering Roberts often created with his bullocking runs.
In 2013, Davies was controversially selected in the third Test ahead of O’Driscoll in what would have been BOD’s last appearance for the British and Irish Lions. In the end, the Lions won that Test convincingly. Davies was again selected to play on the 2017 Lions tour to New Zealand where he was instrumental in the second Test win and was voted Player of the Series by his Lions team-mates and the rugby writers.
Tana Umaga is widely regarded as one of the best All Blacks three-quarters of all time, beginning his international career on the wing before switching to centre in 2000, where he became one of the best 13s in the world, statistically averaging a try in every other Test he played. In 2004 Graham Henry named him as All Blacks captain and under his stewardship his team won 19 of their 21 games including a 3-0 series win against the 2005 British and Irish Lions.
Despite controversy over the first Test tackle in which he was involved with Keven Mealamu and from which Lions skipper O’Driscoll suffered a tour-ending injury, Umaga was hailed as an inspiring leader and became the first non-Maori to lead the Haka. He signed off in some style, leading the All Blacks to an end-of-year Grand Slam tour of Europe in 2005 to finish his career.
With a star studded list to choose from, our choice at outside centre is the Dublin dynamo, the world’s most capped back, Brian O’Driscoll.