With this season seeing the ascension of Sam Simmonds, Marcus Smith and Hamish Watson from club players to Lions, the question of size in rugby has never been more to the fore. Any discussion of the lions test team has seen the idea that Hamish Watson might not be big enough to play against the springboks. Whilst this view has been expressed with varying degrees of venom, it is hard to know whether anyone truly believes it. The topic is of course at the forefront of the minds of pundits and coaches alike. The Lions are in South Africa, a nation whose rugby is built on size and a dominance in the most violent elements of the sport. The most physically confrontational team in the world. So how does size fit into the makeup of a professional rugby player? How important is it to being a successful competitor at the club and international levels? Is Rugby really the sport ‘for all shapes and sizes’ that it claims to be?

There are a few key reasons for rugby’s obsession with size. First and most simply, rugby is a contact sport. Much like Olympic wrestling or MMA it pays to be bigger than your opponent. Size, particularly in the amateur era, correlated directly to a competitive advantage. I say in the amateur era, because the professional game bears little resemblance to its predecessor in anything but aesthetic detail. One need only go and watch Jonah Lomu’s destruction of England at the 95’ world cup to see how amateur players tackle. In a word, badly. Throughout the amateur era there is an almost Under 10s like effect of size instilling fear, causing defenders to back out of tackles. Size then, was paramount in the amateur era because of this lack of discipline. That is not a slight on the legends of yester year, they played an amateur sport and couldn’t devote their entire lives to it. Size was something that in the amateur days you either had or didn’t have. If you were in the latter category you were constantly beaten with the adage: ‘the bigger they are the harder they fall’. 

That incredible string of games by Lomu in the 95’ world cup is the second reason for rugby’s obsession with size. Lomu is without doubt the closest thing to a superstar rugby has ever had. Watching Lomu run over white jersey’s like speed bumps is one of the most enduring images in the sport, second only to Pienaar being handed the World Cup by Mandela. Lomu’s physicality and athleticism stood out, people fell in love with this idea of the big bulldozing winger. So much so that any winger with a bit of heft today is compared to Lomu’s legend. This was Lomu’s real impact, he created an attitude within rugby that saw the size of Lomu and believed that it was the reason for his success. Whilst it was undoubtedly part of it, many overlooked the other excellent attributes of Lomu as a player. Focussing instead on his size as the X-Factor. 

This contact sport mentality, paired with the superstardom of Lomu, meant that when professionalisation rolled around in the late 90s the future of the sport was clear. The strength and conditioning side of rugby would take a while to catch on. In an early professional era rife with players still behaving as amateurs, players who regularly worked on this area were anomalies, not the norm. However as the last amateur players filtered out, the strength and conditioning portion of the sport has become essential. Academy players are often tasked with stacking on size when they graduate to first teams. One need only look at the age of props like Bevan Rodd and Joe Heyes. 20 and 22 years old respectively the two young men have been consistent starters who have really helped their teams this season. This is significant as ten years ago a prop who could compete physically at that age were one in a million. This shows the impact professionalisation has had on the size and physicality of players. 

So amateur roots, professional development, and a huge winger running over Mike Catt, changed rugby from a punters game to a sport with a deeply ingrained desire for players to always be getting bigger and stronger. So where does size sit now, in the modern game? 

Let’s look first to the domestic scene. The premiership this year, despite ring fencing, COVID-19 and no Saracens, produced two of the most incredible games of rugby in the competitions history. Harlequins efforts against Bristol, affectionately named the ‘miracle of Bristanbul’ after Liverpool’s 2005 effort in the Champions League final, set a new bar for attacking rugby. Next week they went further, scoring 40 points against a fully charged Exeter Chiefs squad to win the premiership, the largest underdog ever to do so. The key to success in the final, and throughout much of the season was two men who live at opposite ends of the size scale. Marcus Smith and André Esterhuizen. The 10/12 combination is a bit of an odd couple match up. Esterhuizen stands 6’3” and weighs around 115kg, Smith conversely stands 5’6” and weighs around 82kg. So the two men who couldn’t be more different, one a born and bred South African bruiser, the other a diminutive, golden wristed Filipino. Yet two men who came to define harlequins season.

Esterhuizen is a coach from 2005’s wet dream. His size and strength coupled with his love of a classical inside centre crash ball, made him an excellent safety valve for Harlequins this season. His size is doubtless a part of his success, however players like him and his South African counterpart De Allende are no longer the game breakers they once were. It is important to recognise that players like Esterhuizen have exceptional size for their positions. To say that they are simply big is reductive, in reality their size is a rare and exceptional attribute that makes them effective on the field. They open up opportunities for phase play and provide go forward for an attacking team, where in times gone by they would tear open defences on one up carries. Their role has been adjusted with the improvement to tackling and overall defence of modern professional teams. So the enormous South African is no longer the game breaker, instead its newly minted Lion Marcus Smith. 

Smith this season has, as an outright small rugby player been transcendent. He is clear proof, along with team mates like Louis Lynagh and Tyrone Green, that a lack of size can be easily made up for in the professional game. Smith is stronger in defence than many realise and his 131 tackles in the season speak to a commitment in defence that many other 10s do not possess. Smith shows that you can play at the top level, even the Lions, without elite size. Admittedly you must be exceptional in other areas, but there is no shortage of players with that kind of ability at the professional level. Smith is able to open up the game with his decision making and his goose-step, and is competent enough defensively that playing him is not a liability. 

Smith receives less focus in the size debate, because since the days of Shane Williams being told he was too small to play rugby, the backs have always had a bit more freedom in shape and size. The battleground in which the size debate is fought, is the forwards. Meatheads, piano pushers, knuckle draggers whatever name you use for them the forwards have to be big, right? Wrong. One need only look to the debate around the Number Eight position this year for England. Vunipola was manhandled throughout the six nations, his stature no longer doing him the favours it used to. Vunipola’s size coupled with his hard running and consistency was what made him dangerous. Not his size alone. In contrast, the ‘too small’ Simmonds dominated the season physically and on the score sheet. He looks so physical in fact that he stands out as the most abrasive option at Number Eight for the Lions. His speed and explosiveness more than make up for his perceived lack of size and make him arguably a more effective player, ball in hand, that Vunipola ever was. Simmonds is doubly impressive when considering the ‘big man’ based system he plays in at Exeter. Alex Dombrandt plays in a team and system which emphasises his obvious strengths (namely his support running). Simmonds’ situation is the opposite, big brawlers like Jannes Kirsten and Johnny Gray are the players designed for success in the Exeter system. So Simmonds is not successful because of his team’s style. Instead he is successful in spite of it. Simmonds is proof that exceptional size is not necessary, even in a power game. Of course it helps, but exceptional attributes in other facets of the game can easily account for a lack of size. 

Here we see the through line between Smith and Simmonds. They lack the exceptional size of other players, but have elite skills in other areas that make this size deficiency negligible. Smith’s decision making and distribution in attack is the best in the world at the moment. Simmonds might be the most explosive forward on the planet. Watson’s ability to carry into contact is his exceptional skill, an area often reserved for the largest back rowers. Here’s the idea then, a more positive approach to both selection and support. The Lions squad is full of examples of selection based largely on size (Courtney Lawes and Duhan van De Merwe come to mind). This negative selections style is rampant, particularly in international squads. To be clear these players deserve their spots and played exceptionally on the weekend. Positive selection revolves around selecting players based on performance not attributes. In a time when the game is seeking to be more exciting and more inclusive, selection plays a huge role. Players like Hamish Watson and Marcus Smith capture the imagination of fans because they are a breath of fresh air. They are not the bludgeons of the 2010s that pundits like Sir Ian McGeechan are still so obsessed with. Is it a coincidence that players like Smith, Watson, even Rees-Zammit do not fit the ever increasing size requirements and yet are some of the most exciting and effective attacking players in the world? Maybe, but It would be a huge coincidence. 

So yes size matters, but it is not the limiting factor people seem to believe it is. Some, like Eben Etzebeth, are such exceptional physical specimens, that for them physicality and size is the quality they will hang their hat on. However, others stand testament to the old adage of rugby as a game for all shapes and sizes. Perhaps the rise of the Simmonds’ and the Smith’s of the world will force a quality first selection, with a more creative approach to the sport as a whole. I am not saying every team should play like Harlequins. Eschewing physicality in favour of playmakers. But come on how entertaining would that be?