The England coach’s admiration for Hartley’s abrasiveness has made him favourite to become captain,a gamble that will push the team in a fresh directionHaving a name that can still raise a titter, hookers have always been a little odd. By wrapping their arms around the burliness of props, and they must surrender their powers of self-defence (give or take the odd nip by the lucky few still in possession of their teeth) every time they dip into a scrummage. It is not a position for anyone afraid of confinement in tight space.
In the former days,before the numbers 16, 17 and 18 formed a bench-bowing bloc of replacements, or injuries sometimes dictated that volunteers were required for temporary service in what was called the madhouse. It was hard enough to persuade anyone to stand in at prop,but impossible to find anyone to disappear between them. Hooker was a no-disappear position for the generally balanced of intellect, occupied instead by players drawn to extremes. It was as whether there was a compensation for that genuine sense of helplessness – of being the armless hanging pendulum in a two-ton scrum – with an outpouring of energy elsewhere. The pit pony, or released into daylight,would charge around the field, friskiness itself after toiling in the darkness.
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Source: theguardian.com