![\"Marseille,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/\/7f42e6f4-ecee-44a3-b7e6-6a82f1717710.jpg\")
<\/p>\nYou could be forgiven for thinking prop forwards are the only blokes who scrummage. The television cameras zoom into the scrum, the channel between the opposing front rows, as they set \u2014 or, as is often the case, reset. The scrum collapses for a first or second time. The referees and their assistants claim a complete understanding of what is happening and blow their whistles for free kicks and penalties.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose loose-heads coming in at an angle\u201d. \u201cThat\u2019s an easy infringement for us amateurs to spot\u201d. Listen to the old props chatting and pick up the lingo as the TV director focuses on those most charismatic of rugby characters. The modern scrum seeks stability and with it, health and safety for the props. But still the scrums collapse and still the combatants either shake their heads in resignation or accept the pats on the back from incoming wings sprinting in to celebrate the penalty.<\/p>\n
The penalty kick, if within 50 metres of the tryline, is booted as deep as possible into the infringing side\u2019s 22-metre zone. Frequently, the eventual result is a try. The five-metre catch and drive leads to more scores than all the first-phase back moves put together from scrums and lineouts. Hookers make the headlines as they burrow their way over from behind the praetorian guard of props. Our heroes.<\/p>\n
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Given the scoring prowess of players like Dan Sheehan, the Ireland hooker, the grunt work of the second and back rows often go unnoticed by the casual eye<\/p>\n
BEN WHITLEY\/ALAMY<\/p>\n
But is it really the loose and tight-head props who merit so much attention? The cameras, alas, cannot get into the actual scrum itself. If they could, we might all have a little more love for the second (and back) rows, who grunt and graft with everything they possess. Purists of the game like to talk about the tight-head locks . . . what the heck?<\/p>\n
These are the men on the right side of the set piece endowed with apparently superhuman scrum powers. The \u201cengine room\u201d of the pack; the engines that help propel their front row into the headlines and the opposing pack into the dirt. And there\u2019s few to match George Martin as a hard-scrummaging second row.<\/p>\n
Martin has been making headlines since opting to leave Leicester Tigers \u2014 the club who developed him from academy to international \u2014 to join Saracens when his contract expires in the summer. The Tigers are said to be disappointed, and understandably so given their role in the making of a top-class player who has turned out only 15 times for them in the past two seasons. Loyalty isn\u2019t what it once was.<\/p>\n
![\"George](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/\/a36f8da8-2a89-41f9-9ab1-a199e9f95d3b.jpg\")
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Martin will still only be 25 by the time the Six Nations returns in February, and he has a chance to nail down a starting spot<\/p>\n
DAN MULLAN \u2013 RFU\/THE RFU COLLECTION VIA GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n
Money talks. Leicester tacitly swear. Martin hopes he\u2019ll be fit to play some time in January. And then he\u2019ll slip into the England team. Shunting those scrums and, from the ensuing penalties, a lineout option from which Steve Borthwick<\/a>\u2019s team can send one of their hookers over for a try.<\/p>\n If he does muscle his way into the Six Nations side some time in 2026, he will be partnering his future Saracens team-mate, Maro Itoje, in the second row. The England captain, as far as second rows go, is Martin\u2019s diametric opposite. He soars at the lineout, he positions himself over the ruck in ways that are both legal and eye-catching. He ranges around the field, larger than life.<\/p>\n They are contrasting characters on the rugby pitch; Itoje thrives in the spotlight, Martin makes mashed potato of opposing forwards, preferably away from the limelight. This past week, however, has earned him more headlines than he will garner for the rest of his career. But that is to underestimate why Saracens have spent a lot of money on a 24-year-old with nerve damage to his shoulder and a history of injuries. Mark McCall doesn\u2019t strike me as a gambler, but Martin is a risk worth taking.<\/p>\n Martin and Itoje would complement each other well lining up together for England<\/p>\n DAN MULLAN \u2013 RFU\/THE RFU COLLECTION VIA GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n![\"Maro](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/\/f5e1f587-7dc2-4464-8646-d058fbd1edf6.jpg\")
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![\"Antoine](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/\/41ee62bf-9a99-4d94-9f68-3cbfcc56c8b8.jpg\")
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