The Lions couldn\u2019t solve him. For the 55-odd minutes or so he was on the field in the second and third Tests, Australia looked like they had an axis of control.<\/p>\n
It was a brutal demonstration of what happens when an athlete with that physical profile is properly developed \u2013 and of what happens when you let him drift out of your system in the first place.<\/p>\n
It would be a reductio ad absurdum to suggest rugby is simply a game of who can field the heaviest side. Yet, it\u2019s also undeniable that when matched with the prerequisite levels of fitness and skill, Skelton-sized athletes can wreak a certain, awesome kind of havoc.<\/p>\n
The 33-year-old\u2019s true value is being discovered belatedly in his homeland, but at least it\u2019s a case of better late than never. Increasingly, athletes of his dimensions are being entirely lost to Aussie rugby.<\/p>\n Take the case of Emmanuel Meafou. At 6\u20198 and 145kg, he was in the Melbourne Rebels\u2019 pathway, moved through Melbourne Rising and Warringah, then disappeared overseas. Now he\u2019s a French international and a dominant lock for Toulouse, doing to others what Skelton did to the Lions.<\/p>\n That kind of profile? French club sides will build teams around. Australian rugby let him walk into someone else\u2019s second row without a second thought.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not just a rugby blind spot. Jordan Mailata, another hulking figure at 6\u20198 and 166kg, was a rugby league player barely on the NRL\u2019s age-grade radar when the NFL found him. He\u2019s now starting for the Philadelphia Eagles, earning tens of millions.<\/p>\n For rugby union fans, it\u2019s difficult not to marvel at Mailata and wonder what sort of a second-row he would have made [albeit minus 20 kilos]. Could and should rugby have beaten the NFL to the punch on Mailata? The more pertinent question: were they even aware of his existence?<\/p>\n Although widely cited, Mailata\u2019s journey is not unique.<\/p>\n Daniel Faalele also slipped through rugby\u2019s fingers, and he, too, is now forging a successful career in the NFL. Another Melbourne-born giant, he stands 6ft 8 and weighs around 170kg [one of the heaviest players in the league]. He grew up playing rugby union before being picked up in 2017 by American football scouts.<\/p>\n The Baltimore Ravens are now paying him $3.4m in base salary.<\/p>\n Athletes like this are the kind of thing the southern hemisphere rugby should be stockpiling. Instead, it\u2019s exporting it.<\/p>\n Laki Tasi\u2019s story is the latest example. Standing 6\u20196 with arms over 34 inches long, the colossus was playing club rugby in Queensland barely two years ago, weighing in at 200kg before dropping 30 of them. A family friend steered him towards American football.<\/p>\n Now he\u2019s a defensive lineman signed by the Las Vegas Raiders through the International Player Pathway, with rugby in the rearview mirror.<\/p>\n Another one lost.<\/p>\n Just this week, Thomas Yassmin took former Wallaby centre Jordan Petaia\u2019s IPP place at the Los Angeles Chargers. The 6\u20195, 115kg former Scots College rugby winger [and one-time Petaia teammate] swapped Sydney for Salt Lake City to play college football with Utah, where he went from complete novice to Rose Bowl touchdown scorer in just a few seasons.<\/p>\n Ironically, he is now competing for Petaia\u2019s NFL place, after the often-injured ex-Wallaby star pulled a hamstring. Two talented rugby union players scrapping for the same spot in a different code.<\/p>\n Admittedly, for every Mailata or Faalele who makes it, there are a dozen others who don\u2019t.<\/p>\n The NFL\u2019s International Player Pathway is a glittering lure, but most who chase it end up on the outer edges of the sport \u2013 camp bodies, practice squad names, sometimes nothing more than a footnote on a transaction wire.<\/p>\n High-profile names like Christian Wade<\/a> and Louis Rees-Zammit<\/a> made headlines on either side of the Atlantic in recent seasons, but increasingly, it\u2019s lesser-known, big-bodied athletes who are finding out how unforgiving and short-lived detours to American football can be.<\/p>\n Discarded hopefuls like Christian Scotland-Williamson<\/a>, George Smith<\/a>, Daniel Adongo, Hayden Smith and Lawrence Okoye all now litter an increasingly long list of outsized athletes that have left rugby only to fade into obscurity in the American code.<\/p>\n The point is not that Australian rugby should be beating the NFL for athletes when it comes to financial clout. It can\u2019t. The point is that the same size, power and athletic profiles that tempt NFL scouts should be automatic red flags for rugby talent ID in the southern hemisphere. If an athlete is 6\u20196 and 140kg and has the raw athletic talent to go with that frame, he should be on a pathway contract, not waiting for a phone call from Florida.<\/p>\n Instead, Antipodean rugby\u2019s identification systems too often reward early polish over raw, mouldable size. The French leagues are flipping that equation. In the Top 14, especially, a giant with the right attitude is a project worth years of investment.<\/p>\n In Australia, if he isn\u2019t immediately a Super Rugby starter, he risks being shunted aside. That\u2019s how you end up watching Meafou in a French jersey or Skelton celebrating European titles.<\/p>\n Queensland Reds<\/a> assistant Jon Fisher put it bluntly to the BBC: \u201cThere are 50 to 100 guys playing in the AFL and rugby league who if they were brought up in the Northern Hemisphere would be playing rugby union. If rugby league and AFL didn\u2019t exist in this country, I think the Wallabies would be hard pressed to ever lose a game.\u201d<\/p>\n He\u2019s right. The athletic stock is there. What\u2019s missing is the system to regularly capture and develop it.<\/p>\n Australian rugby isn\u2019t the only union missing the bus on giant athletes. One anecdote told to RugbyPass by All Blacks<\/a> coaching icon Wayne Smith suggests they\u2019re not the only Antipodeans struggling to make room for huge athletes in the code, especially in their formative teen years.<\/p>\n \u201cAbout a year-and-a-half ago, I was taking the World Cup around. I took it down to my old town. A kid came over from Rotorua with his dad. He was 6\u20199, 180kg, and he was 13. 180kg. And he wasn\u2019t really fat. I\u2019d never seen anything like it,\u201d said Smith, speaking in 2019. \u201cHe was actually too big for rugby \u2013 he wasn\u2019t allowed to play. I asked him what he was doing instead and he said boxing! Kids are getting bigger and bigger and I don\u2019t know how the game is going to cope with it.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"British](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-2226311757.jpg.webp\")
British and Irish Lions\u2019 Maro Itoje<\/a> (R) engages in a scuffle with Australia\u2019s Will Skelton<\/a> during the second rugby Test match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on July 26, 2025. (Photo by Martin KEEP \/ AFP) \/ \u2014 IMAGE RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE \u2013 STRICTLY NO COMMERCIAL USE (Photo by MARTIN KEEP\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n![\"Jordan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/mailata_jordan2-1024x576.jpg.webp\")
Jordan Mailata playing U20s for the Rabbitohs \u2013 Getty Images<\/p>\n![\"Thomas](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-1446403446.jpg.webp\")
Thomas Yassmin #87 of the Utah Utes runs with the ball during the fourth quarter of the PAC-12 Championship football game against the USC Trojans at Allegiant Stadium on December 02, 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Utah Utes won 47-24. (Photo by Alika Jenner\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n