Hooker warns kids about ‘smashing gym’
An English hooker playing for Kiwi coach Pat Lam at Bristol has hit out at a trend within rugby to encourage young teenage players to ‘‘smash the gym’’.
Harry Thacker, 24, was told at his former club Leicester that he was too small to make the grade as a front rower in the professional game.
Yet, Thacker – who is 1.76m tall and weighs 93kg – is thriving at the Bristol Bears this season with six tries in his last seven premiership games.
He told England’s Mail on Sunday newspaper he ‘‘felt like I was always fighting a losing battle at Leicester,’’ where his father, Troy, played before him, as a hooker.
‘‘A fair few coaches there told me I was too small. I never really felt they trusted me to do a job.’’
Thacker said Leicester’s culture was based on a big pack ‘‘running over people’’.
‘‘Unfortunately, I’m more likely to run under people.’’
Growing up, he refused to take supplements to build himself up, and he believes young players should wait till they are 18 before getting into serious weight training.
‘‘I get a lot of messages from kids at 14, 15, 16 on Instagram saying: ‘‘I’m being told that I need to put as much weight on as possible; what did you do’’?’, he said.
‘‘I’ve sat down with a few boys going through the system. I’m a strong believer that, if you’re good enough, you should be there. The weight will come. I don’t think guys at 14 should be ‘smashing the gym.’
‘‘There’s a lot of pressure for youngsters to be bigger, stronger, faster,’’ he said. ‘‘There’s probably more focus on that than their core skills. Passing, tackling, stuff like that.
‘‘There is a lot of pressure and I think it’s directed at the wrong things. When you’re 18, 19, 20 is when your major growth should occur. Not at 16.’’
Thacker told the Mail on Sunday he hit the gym as a youngster, ‘‘trying to hit every muscle group I could to try to put weight on’’.
‘‘I put on as much weight as I could put on — to the point I wasn’t as able to play the game I wanted to play.’’
Thacker said he felt wanted from the outset by Lam, telling the Daily Telegraph the Kiwi coach’s ‘‘whole gameplan at Bristol is about going around teams and going through teams’’.