Hughes the shark must smell blood
Towards the end of my career I began to think of my role as a back-row forward as being very similar to that of a shark. My job was to smell blood, sense any weakness or fear in the opposition fly-half and then hunt them down.
When England look at Finn Russell today they will see a man who is vulnerable, who lacks confidence and who is potentially easy meat. The man who will be asked to test that theory is Nathan Hughes. With Billy Vunipola injured he is Eddie Jones’s enforcer, and it is telling that he has been recalled so quickly after recovering from a knee injury.
His primary target will be Russell, and within the first five minutes of today’s game at Murrayfield I expect the No8 to pick up the ball, hold it in his distinctive, one-handed style, and run straight at the Scottish fly-half.
It is the type of collision that could define the game, set the tone and silence the home crowd. If he runs over the Scot then England will know the match is in their grasp. It is a role for which Hughes is ideally suited, and his standing in the game is shown by how little comment there has been about the fact he has been parachuted into the side having played just 90 minutes of rugby in three months.
He will know that in English rugby the No8 is seen as a totemic figure. Gill Burns, Catherine Spence, Dean Richards and Lawrence Dallaglio were No8s in that mould, and Billy Vunipola is showing signs that he could be held in a similar regard by the end of his career. It means that there is a huge amount of pressure on Hughes to show he can step into those shoes.
I believe he is more than capable of doing so, with his ball carrying setting him apart. He was born in Fiji, moving to England in 2013 after time in New Zealand, and has that distinctive South Sea Island approach – the ball in one hand, arm extended for the hand-off –
that is something so few northernhemisphere players are able to do.
If you have ever played rugby at any level you will have heard a coach shout “carry the ball in both hands”, but at the rarefied level of Test rugby it is such an advantage if you can safely grasp it in one hand, allowing you to fend with the other and bringing the offload into play whilst running over the opposition, something for which the legendary All Black Jonah Lomu was famed. Hughes is strong in the tackle and has a good tactical brain as well as the energy and aggression necessary for the role.
There is no question that England miss Billy Vunipola but Hughes is as close a replacement as you can get. Sam Simmonds has done an admirable job but he is far smaller than Vunipola and Hughes and requires England to play in a different way, making half-breaks rather than pulling in defenders.
I have also been impressed with how Hughes has dealt with being Vunipola’s understudy. Some players can struggle with the idea that they are only keeping the seat warm, and I had to do it for quite a while early in my career. It really fuelled the fire in me and Hughes seems to be a similar character.
Vunipola’s fitness issues mean Hughes will be a vital player over the next two years. He will need to lead and set an example. But above all, today he will need to make his mark. Eddie’s leading shark must step out of the shadows of Billy and prove he is the No 8 everyone should be talking about.