Woki leads new breed of French super locks

CHRIS HEWETT

COLUMNIST

You always knew where you stood with French second row forwards of a certain vintage, even if you didn't stay standing for long.

Exhibit A? Michel Palmie, the “Butcher of Beziers”, who punched his way to infamy and beyond – when the law finally caught up with him, he was banned for life – and, to make matters worse, habitually took the field strapped up like Tutankhamun, thereby denying his opponents the bandages they were sure to require.

Exhibit B? That would be Jean- Francois Imbernon, the Gauloiseand-granite Perpignan lock who partnered Palmie in the boilerhouse of the scrum in the late 1970s and was known on this side of the water as “The Godfather”. Which begs the obvious question: if Palmie was insufficiently intimidating to be the “Boss of Bosses”, what the hell did his Catalan confrere do to merit the title?

But that was way back then. You do not need to be a tenured professor at the Steve Borthwick Academy of Locks and Lineouts to understand that times have changed.

The old-style Tricolore tractors are still around, glowering and snarling into their beards: every club keeps one somewhere, usually in a cage behind the bar. But at international level, there is a startling new modernising force at work in the depths of the French pack and it goes by the name of Cameron Woki.

Crikey, what a talent. Without putting too fine a point on it, there is evidence to suggest that the Bordeaux-Begles forward will soon mean as much to Les Bleus as means to England, albeit in different ways. If this turns out to be the case, the next few years of Anglo-French rivalry will be as compelling as anything seen in decades.

Woki is hardly the first grunt-andgroaner to be quicker than he has any right to be: Frik du Preez of started that nonsense as long ago as the 1960s. Neither has he broken new ground as a multi-faceted, multi-skilled, multi-tasker. John Eales, quite possibly the most gifted lock ever to pull on a shirt, won matches for the Wallabies on his own, sometimes by kicking last-minute goals that would have made Dan Carter or Jonny Wilkinson think twice.

Yet there is a uniquely dynamic brand of athleticism about Woki that sets him apart. He showed it as a flanker in the nip-and-tuck series in Australia during the summer and he inflicted it upon the last weekend, this time from the middle row of the scrum.

A dry statistical read-out does not tell the story of his impact in . Half a dozen carries (plus a knock on); a dozen tackles (one of them missed); four lineout wins (together with two losses); a single successful offload…on the face of it, this was a long way short of mind-blowing.

“Evidence suggests Woki will soon mean as much to Les Bleus as Itoje means to England”

Happily, this column can report that the numbers add up to only so much.

If the measurables of the Woki effect can be recorded on a spreadsheet, the indefinables of it cannot.

Instead of ploughing him into breakdown contact in the middle of the field, Fabien Galthie and his fellow French think-tankers kept their ace card well away from the poo fight, leaving the opposition to fret about what he might do to them in open space. Sure enough, the New Zealanders could be seen looking for Woki all game.

His ground coverage at what might be called cruise speed was magnificent, and when he engaged a really high gear, it was off the scale. The timing of his lineout deliveries led to two of the four French tries – he also contributed to Romain Ntamack's joyous score with ball in hand – and he won penalties at important moments, not least off the skipper Sam Whitelock, who hardly makes a habit of being taken for a fool.

Top talent: Cameron Woki is a new force of nature for
PICTURE: Getty Images

And at the start of the final quarter, he quietly slipped out of the engine room and did a turn on the flank. We see this kind of thing quite often nowadays – Courtney Lawes provides the option for England, Franco Mostert does it for the – but neither can match the Frenchman for gas.

Oh, one more thing: Woki has just turned 23. He's a kid. Just three years ago, he was playing against Marcus Smith in an age-group final (and scoring one of the tries that earned his country the trophy). If he stays fit and the national selectors treat him right, he has the capacity to drive Les Bleus towards a first title of the grown-up variety.

As the author David Beresford tells us in his evocative book Brothers in Arms, the French boss Jacques Fouroux once enticed an ageing Imbernon back into his Five Nations team by offering him a traditional eveof-match meal of cheese and red wine while every other player was being drip-fed a miserably healthy diet of steamed fish, grated carrot and assorted leaves.

We live in a less maverick rugby age, but if Woki asks for a half-moon of Roquefort and a bottle of Chateau Latour before kick-off, he should be granted his wish. Yes, he's that good.