Planet Rugby’s Greatest Professional XV: Tighthead prop
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: Tighthead prop
Nominees:
Adam Jones (100 caps, 2 tries)
Carl Hayman (45 caps, 2 tries)
Martin Castrogiovanni (119 caps, 12 tries)
Nicolas Mas (85 caps, 1 try)
When putting this shortlist together Planet Rugby counselled a number of international props, as, let’s face it, few really know what goes on in the dark arts of the front-row. Three names kept cropping up as scrummagers, Mas, Jones and Hayman, whilst Castrogiovanni adds the modern mobility needed in Test rugby. Apologies to Olo Brown, who played more so as an amateur, and then Owen Franks, Tadhg Furlong, Phil Vickery, Rabah Slimani, Dan Cole and Kyle Sinckler, but our powerful quartet offer the best we’ve seen of the last 25 years.
Adam Jones would be the first to admit that he spent the early part of his Test career as a little bit of a cliché of an immobile and unfit scrummaging specialist. However, as his confidence and desire grew, so did his all-round game and, although capped six years previously, his turning point came in the British and Irish Lions tour of 2009, where his fitness had become exemplary and subsequent work in containing a previously dominant Bok scrum is the stuff of rugby legend.
The “Hair Bear” enjoyed a playing career of 18 years, becoming the master of the old ‘hit’ and developing the ability to scrum very low, and to using his weight positioning, in order to drive the loosehead’s head towards his left knee. Four Six Nations championships and three Grand Slams saw Jones anchor the Welsh scrum as the man once criticised for being amateur in his approach, became one of the most professional players in the game. He is now scrum coach at Harlequins.
Carl Hayman only managed 45 caps for New Zealand, but in that time he left an indelible impression on any unfortunate loosehead that came his way. Standing 6’4″ tall and weighing over 120kgs, Hayman became the 1000th All Black when he made his debut as a replacement against Samoa in 2001. Hayman’s height means that he wasn’t the classical technical tighthead, but his immense power in the loose and scrummaging prowess soon saw him rise to the top of the world game. Following the 2007 World Cup, Hayman signed with Premiership side Newcastle, allegedly becoming the best paid player in the world game.
Named as the Falcons’ captain in 2009, Hayman was earmarked in many quarters as a certainty for the All Blacks’ assault on the World Cup on home soil in 2011. Surprisingly, he turned down the New Zealand jersey opting to sign with Toulon, joining former Falcons team-mates Jonny Wilkinson and Tom May on the French Riviera. Whatever one’s views on Hayman’s later antics in life, judged as a prop alone, he is without question one of the greatest the game has ever seen.
Martin Castrogiovanni is one of rugby’s great characters and absolutely embodies the spirit of the game. Flowing locks, caveman beards and swathes of self-adhesive bandage fused together to make the Italian one of the most colourful characters on the field and his mobility brought him a world record 12 tries for a prop forward. A strong scrummager whether for Italy or Leicester Tigers, he acquired cult status at Welford Road and played a key role in the Tigers’ dominance of the England domestic scene in the 2000s, helping them to Premiership titles in 2007, 2009 and 2010.
Representing Italy in two Rugby World Cups, he made his international debut against New Zealand in 2002 and notched up his 50th Test cap during the Six Nations in 2008. His try-scoring record was such that he bagged a hat-trick of tries against Japan in 2004 and in 2008 was the Azzurri’s top try-scorer in the Six Nations with three five-pointers. A keen foodie, Castro now owns a number of restaurants, giving weight to his reputation as the Godfather of Italian scrummaging.
Nicolas Mas‘ inclusion in our shortlist might surprise a few, but in researching this piece, players such Jones and George Chuter told Planet Rugby that Mas was one of the most formidable opponents that they ever came across as a disruptive scrummager. A short, squat prop with a powerful neck and a square, solid head, he would use those muscles to exert enormous pressure on his opposing hooker and was almost impossible to shift once anchored in position. Mas made his debut for France in 2003, and went on to play in the 2007 Rugby World Cup where he joined the squad as a replacement for the injured Sylvain Marconnet.
He also competed at the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand. Able to compete on both sides of the front-row, Mas played an important part in Perpignan’s famous run to the 2003 Heineken Cup final where he was the starting tighthead in the quarter-final win away to Llanelli, and played at loosehead for the semi-final win against Leinster at Lansdowne Road. He retired from Test rugby in 2015, when former French coach Phillipe Saint-Andre paid him a glowing tribute as the “last of the great French scrummaging props”.
Tighthead props should be fearsome, powerful, skilled and nasty and no player sums that up more than the winner of our tighthead berth, the formidable All Black, Carl Hayman.