There are few better qualified to speak on the nuances of lineouts than Keven Mealamu. Photo / Photosport
There are few better qualified to speak on the nuances of lineouts than Keven Mealamu. Photo / Photosport
The most capped All Blacks hooker, Keven Mealamu, is delighted when it’s suggested to him that throwing to a lineout in front of a sold-out test crowd might fairly be compared to a golfer making a vital putt in a major tournament.
Mealamu, who in a 132-test careerthrew the ball to lineouts at four Rugby World Cups from 2003, says: “It can definitely feel like that, having to execute a fine skill, sometimes on the back of coming from a scrum, where you’ve been in the middle of 1000kg pushing each way... you have to clear your head, get a call, and go and execute the throw.
“There’s some real complexity in what a hooker does, and I think it’s often overlooked.” He then laughs, but the point is made.
“I think it helps for people to know what’s actually going on.
“For a lineout to be in synch involves a lot of components.
“There’s a thrower, there are two lifters and a jumper. So you’re talking about the timing of four people. What you have to add to that is movement down both sides of the lineout. To get your lineout working well, you need some time under the belt so everyone is on the same page. That can only come with time together.”
At team training, he says, because there are so many other areas to be worked on with the forwards, from kickoffs to scrums to tackled ball, huge periods can’t be devoted just to lineouts.
Mealamu theorises that simplicity is the key in addressing the All Blacks set piece issues. Photo / Photosport
Scott Robertson and his coaching staff now will, Mealamu believes, not be adding endless drills to correct problems from the England series.
“When you get too much feedback on lineouts you can get blurred about what you should be working on. What’s needed is seeing problems, and being really clear when you review the game. Are we too slow to get to the mark? Little details to work on, not doing reps for the sake of doing reps.
“That’ll be what the team will be working on. What’s missing at the moment? What are we not doing really well? Then working on those points.”
Mealamu’s own story illustrates the commitment that always accompanies high achievement in any sport.
As a teenage flanker at Aorere College in Papatoetoe, he made a New Zealand Under-16 side, but when he missed selection for the 1997 national secondary school team, he was told he might be too short for higher honours as a loose forward. So he switched to hooker.
“I was really lucky my First XV coach, Geoff Moon, was actually a former hooker. Geoff, who is sadly no longer with us, was an awesome man, who was able to give me a lot of foundational work around scrummaging body position, and also lineout throwing, one of the big fundamentals. Probably that was what gave me the confidence to move to that position.
“You can know how to throw but there are so many different elements to it. To have someone with that experience to lean on really helped me.
“After getting the basics done, it definitely came down to repetition, repetition, repetition. I had access to the school gym, but I could also use the basketball courts outside as a tool to get better. I would always be out there aiming for the [painted] box on the backboard behind a basketball hoop.
“Because it was new to me, it had a fun factor to it. When you’re first learning something, it’s a bit of fun, so you just go out and do it heaps.”
Keven Mealamu in action for Auckland during the 2001 NPC season, aged 22. Photo / Kenny Rodger
His good fortune with mentors continued when he made the Auckland NPC team as a 20-year-old in 1999, playing in 12 games, usually as an understudy to Paul “Ox” Mitchell, a hard-nosed veteran of a decade with King Country.
“He was another lovely man who was patient with me. It doesn’t always work like that. Being young, moving to a new position, you need that. I was lucky too with the calibre of locks, I had Charles Riechelmann, Robin Brooke, Jason Chandler, very good locks who also looked after me.”
During his 14 years as an All Black, Mealamu developed into what appeared to be a nerveless thrower. It didn’t happen overnight.
“At the start of my career I didn’t have the tools to deal with, let’s say, having a couple of bad throws, then getting yourself out of the slump.
“Learning how to alleviate that stress or anxiety, may come down to something physical you do. You might see someone doing something like Damian McKenzie’s smile when he goal kicks that looks odd, but works for him. Some hookers like to pick up grass and feel it between their fingers.
“For me it was being able to breathe in that space, taking a couple of deep breaths, relaxing your nervous system. After the pressure of a scrum, where it feels like you’ve been holding your breath, it’s really important to get some oxygen back in, so you’re thinking really clearly.”
Over a lifetime of covering rugby, Phil Gifford has seen many of the greatest players to don the black jersey – and the biggest change in that time has been the arrival of professionalism in 1996.
