{"id":395884,"date":"2026-01-29T00:05:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T00:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/395884\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T00:05:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T00:05:12","slug":"are-modern-props-being-pushed-too-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/395884\/","title":{"rendered":"are modern props being pushed too far?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The announcement on Tuesday that Fin Baxter would miss the Six Nations to have foot surgery did little to mitigate headlines around England\u2019s \u201cprop problems\u201d. Baxter had featured in 18 successive Tests from debut, no mean feat for anyone, let alone a front-rower.<\/p>\n

Baxter followed Will Stuart and Asher Opoku-Fordjour into absence from Steve Borthwick\u2019s squad. The back-up to Ellis Genge and Joe Heyes is Bevan Rodd and Trevor Davison (13 caps between them), and two uncapped options in Emmanuel Iyogun and Billy Sela.<\/p>\n

It is a similar story in Ireland, where injuries have kept Jack Boyle, Paddy McCarthy and Andrew Porter \u2014 all loose-heads \u2014 out of Andy Farrell\u2019s squad. Tadhg Furlong and Finlay Bealham are in the mix at tight-head, supported by Tom O\u2019Toole (17 caps), Tom Clarkson (ten), Jeremy Loughman (five), Michael Milne (two) and the uncapped Billy Bohan. For Wales, injuries have led to a call-up for Sam Wainwright, arguably his country\u2019s sixth or seventh-choice tight-head.<\/p>\n

\"Uini<\/p>\n

The 23st Atonio was said to be in a stable condition in hospital after suffering a heart attack<\/p>\n

GRANT PITCHER\/GALLO IMAGES\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

The narrative around unavailable props took an unexpected and awful turn when La Rochelle announced on Wednesday morning that Uini Atonio \u2014 6ft 5in and just under 23st \u2014 had been taken to hospital because of a heart attack, ending his professional career, an incident that went far beyond rugby. The club said the 35-year-old was in a stable condition in intensive care, and the thoughts of the sporting world went out to him.<\/p>\n

But in a gruelling sport where injuries are a main character, the demands on a prop are among the toughest. These are the heaviest players on the field, often above 20st, with the need to be powerful in scrums and then mobile around the park. <\/p>\n

For a member of the public, such a strain on the body would be inadvisable. NFL linemen can weigh significantly more \u2014 Desmond Watson, at more than 30st, signed for Tampa Bay Buccaneers last year \u2014 but act mostly as short-burst obstacles. Rugby league has done away with the scrum as a contest and in Australia\u2019s NRL, athletes above 20st are not routine. <\/p>\n

\"Andrew<\/p>\n

Porter feels the effects of a heavy collision during a match at home to Scotland in 2024<\/p>\n

HARRY MURPHY\/SPORTSFILE VIA GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

Sarah Bern, the Red Roses prop, likened her job, from scrummaging to open play, to holding her maximum-weight squat above the floor followed immediately by a sprint, several times a game. Dr Stewart Bruce-Low from the school of health, sports and biosciences at the University of East London, says an athlete of that size can train to accommodate heavy impacts through the amount of muscle they carry, but that \u201cover time it will take its toll\u201d. \u201cThe body is not designed to do that over a long period of time,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

Phil Morrow, the England head of team performance, acknowledges that the prop\u2019s job is not easy, but insists that it is too soon to diagnose a problem with propping fitness in the game. \u201cYou have to be careful that you don\u2019t start changing too much because you could end up with the wrong conclusion,\u201d he said. \u201cWe look at it, we keep analysing it, we\u2019ll keep seeing whether the trend continues, but we don\u2019t want to jump to conclusions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you look at rugby, if you look at the best athletes I worked with in 2010, they\u2019re probably not that much better than the best athletes of 2026, but everyone\u2019s coming up. You don\u2019t have the bad athletes. The general standard, the average, is a lot higher than what it used to be. The demand on props is high.\u201d<\/p>\n

At 5ft 8in and about 17st \u2014 and there were those who thought both figures had been rounded up \u2014 Thomas Domingo was a standout prop for Lilliputian reasons when he won 36 caps in France\u2019s front row between 2009 and 2014, a throwback to amateur days, though smaller men still exist in France: Quentin Walcker, listed by Castres Olympique as just under 6ft and just over 17st, and the Montpellier duo of Baptiste Erdocio and Enzo Forletta, both listed at 5ft 9in and just over 18st. Yet even they have punishing workloads. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like the NFL asking the defensive linemen to go and do all the tackles and the carrying and everything else, in a way,\u201d Will Collier, the Castres tight-head prop, says. \u201cIt\u2019s hard. It\u2019s something I slightly struggled with in my career. I\u2019d say scrummaging is my strength, and I tried to park that for a bit when I was a bit younger, maybe six years ago, lost a lot of weight and developed this all-court game a bit more. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was making a lot of tackles in the game and carries etc, my aerobic fitness was great, but I lost a bit of the essence of what it was to be a prop. My scrum was fine, I wasn\u2019t going backwards much or getting dominated, but I didn\u2019t have the strength and the capacity. I was playing about at 117, 116kg [just over 18st], I\u2019m now 125kg (just under 20st). <\/p>\n

\"Fin<\/p>\n

Test props, such as Baxter, are facing increasing levels of expected performance in a jam-packed schedule in which extended rest is all but impossible<\/p>\n

DAVID ROGERS\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

\u201cThe roles are developing across the front five, massively, what\u2019s expected also of hookers and of second-rowers now. You need to have an all-court game and be able to do everything. For a prop to be able to do that is incredibly hard. To get up from a scrum, the amount of weight that\u2019s just been put through your body, what you just put your body through, and expect to be able to sprint to the next job, do the next thing, go and carry a ball, go and make these tackles. It\u2019s incredibly demanding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collier explains how the grind of a season can affect a prop: the \u201cshort, sharp duress\u201d of a match coupled with the \u201clong, bludgeoning\u201d nature of a season. \u201cYou start the season great, most people do, not many niggles, and you get a routine,\u201d he says. \u201cFor me personally, the things that help are the off-field stuff like the Wattbike and the prowler [sled], which for me simulate that sapping in the legs. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe trouble is the minute you get a niggle or an injury and you start being modified. I had a sore knee at the start of the season, I can\u2019t do the prowler, I can\u2019t squat properly, and it happens a lot, then you have to modify yourself. And then you get into this cycle where you\u2019re clinging on, just getting to match day and match day, and the fitness starts to go down, and it\u2019s really hard to break out of that in these long, monotonous seasons. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re just clinging on, waiting for the next little break where you can get your body right.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The announcement on Tuesday that Fin Baxter would miss the Six Nations to have foot surgery did little…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-395884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}