‘Happy days’ as resurgent Vunipola unveils smarter side
A change of approach has put Saracens and England prop in the spotlight, he
M tells Daniel Schofield ako Vunipola is far from comfortable in the spotlight. Even compliments cause him deep unease. “It gets a bit cringey when I start talking about myself,” he admits. He would much rather remain in the shadows of his younger brother, Billy, which he has done for large stretches of his career. Unfortunately for the Saracens prop, his performances have dictated that it is no longer the case.
“People talk about the skill-set the All Blacks have, well Mako has a skillset that is better than all those All Black tight forwards. His scrum work is consistent and he has that real thirst to be good every game when, previously, it has been a been a bit up and down.” So says Eddie Jones, and it would be some surprise if the elder Vunipola was not the first name on England’s teamsheet for the Old Mutual Wealth series that starts on Saturday against South Africa.
His club form, particularly in the Champions Cup clashes against Toulon and Scarlets, has been little short of staggering and has shattered a few preconceptions in the process.
His scrummaging was once seen as suspect, his physique as podgy. No longer. Yet his transformation from an impact bench player to an 80-minute workhorse owes just as much to confidence as it does to conditioning. A lot of that, as well as his aversion to headlines, stems from the Lions tour to Australia in 2013. Vunipola replaced Alex Corbisiero for the second Test and the Lions’ scrum supremacy vanished, only to be restored when Corbisiero returned for the third Test. The success of a scrum is an eight-man operation, but when it goes wrong it is the props who bear the brunt of the criticism, as Vunipola discovered.
“It doesn’t help and it got to me a bit as a player,” Vunipola said. “It’s one of those things you have to go through. You either take it on the chin and fight it or you walk away from it. I’m very lucky I have got some good people around me who supported me through that. Looking back it’s probably the best thing that happened to me.”
Redemption came this summer when, in the absence of Joe Marler, Vunipola anchored England’s scrum to a whitewash of the Wallabies. Not only did he prove that he can be an equally forceful scrummager as tighthead Dan Cole, but that he could “hang” for 60 minutes-plus. “I’ve still got a lot to work on conditioning-wise, but the Australia tour was great for me,” he said. “We [Mako and Billy] had to prove to the coaches that we could last 80 minutes. We’ve shown now in big games we can last 80 minutes, and if the coaches think it’s best for the team for me to start, then happy days.
“I think last year with my performances for the club, we obviously had rotation, but I think more and more by the end of the year I was playing 70 minutes here and 80 minutes there. It gave me a lot of confidence that I could still have an impact on the game in the later stages.”
Interestingly, there has been no significant difference in the conditioning programme for either Vunipola at Saracens, although the appointment of Ian Peel as forwards coach has made a difference to Mako’s scrummaging. “There are props out there who are quicker in terms of the bleep test, and there are props who are fitter with the VO2 max test, but none of them get through the amount of work that Mako does in terms of tackles and carries,” Alex Sanderson, the Saracens defence coach, said.
“You can measure fitness in terms of sprints, but we prize what he does on the field. Him and his brother top our tackle count, our dominant hit count and near enough our carries as well, so they are the hardest-working members of our squad, but they are by no means the fittest.”
Indeed, Mako’s fitness scores have gone down over the last couple of years. “I’m probably worse at tests now,” he said. “In games my involvements are more. I think it’s more just working smarter, and I’m working out where I need to be rather than running around like a headless chicken. That helps, as well as having a bit more energy and being in the right place at the right time so you can get your hands on the ball or make another tackle.”
Never was that more apparent than in his all-action display against Toulon: he made 21 tackles, hit 11 rucks, made nine carries and forced one turnover, all while ensuring a constant stream of set-piece ball for the Saracens backs.
Then there are the party pieces: the offloads, steps and dummies, as he showcased in his wondrous try against the Scarlets. Videos from Saracens’ training ground show he can also kick a penalty from distance. Would he back himself in a match situation? “100 per cent,” Vunipola laughs. “But I am still waiting for the call.”
If ever there was a frustrated fly-half trapped in a prop’s body then it is Vunipola. “I sort of knew that I was too big and too slow to play anywhere else than the front row, but I love having the ball in my hand and I love kicking as well,” he said. “I would probably back myself to be better than Faz and Goodey [Owen Farrell and Alex Goode] at passing. I’ve told them as well!”