Old-style props like me are just clinging on now says Marler
JOE MARLER says he feels increasingly like part of an endangered species. The bearded Harlequins loosehead is one of the most powerful scrummagers in the game, with that classic hollow back that is the hallmark of the great technicians.
Yet when Marler, who starts today for England against the Barbarians, is asked what the future holds for props of his ilk, he raises his heavily-muscled tattooed arms and mimics hanging by his fingertips from a cliff edge.
“I’m like that at the moment, just clinging on,” Marler says. He adds that the Barbarians reflect the new attitude by lawmakers to the scrum – which is basically to get rid of it.
“They probably won’t want to scrum, to be honest. They’ll be looking for every sort of out they can to get a free-kick or a pen so they put a special play on, I’m sure. We’ll have to have our wits about us.”
Marler is only just warming up, and he makes an impassioned call to protect the scrum.
“I love a scrum, but I’m also starting to appreciate a bit more the game is always changing – and they’re trying their hardest to put props who like scrummaging out of a job as they put more of an emphasis on props getting the ball out as quickly as possible.
“I appreciate that, but if you have an advantage there, you need to be allowed to make the most of that. I don’t want it to go to Rugby League, otherwise I’ll have to go and find a turfing job or something.”
He speaks for many in the front row fraternity when he continues pointedly: “I’m not accusing anyone of trying to take us out of the game but they want a more attractive brand of rugby, and the majority of people see that without scrums, and I think: ‘You bastards’.”
Marler says the lawmakers who have just approved the decision to allow the scrum-half to take a half-step towards his own pack at the put-in should think again. “Ultimately, you want the ball in the middle of the scrum and for both sides to go for it.”
Suggest that one of the most attractive parts of rugby is a good, quick scrum that you can play off and he becomes even more animated. “Massively, and that still requires a loose-head, a hooker and a tight-head who can do that as efficiently as possible.”
Marler says he is always going to struggle to match Mako Vunipola’s prodigious work-rate in the loose, but he is working on ways to make more of an impact around the pitch. “I can’t do what Mako does. He is naturally a ball-playing loose-head.
“I’m more of a malco-ordinated, ball-playing loose-head. I have to try and work on areas where I can contribute. I can carry, not as effectively as Mako or (Ellis) Genge – I need to find a way to use my strengths to contribute to the team – but these guys need someone to clean their rucks. So, it is about find efficient ways of being an option in attack there.”
However, what Marler can do is scrum like a bulldozer, and in South Africa he knows that could be crucial – especially as he speaks from experience, having been an England newcomer on Stuart Lancaster’s losing 2012 tour.
“I don’t care what anyone writes about where South Africa rugby is at the moment, South Africa in South Africa, the people, the crowd, they will be full-on and whatever team they put out will be brutal.”
When it comes to going head-to-head at the scrum, Marler is a chip off the same block – and that is why he will be needed against the Springboks as much as Mako Vunipola.