The “fun” of the farmer’s walk. The “fun” of the farmer’s walk. Images: Warren Clarke

Recovery

“We’re fortunate enough to have hot and cold baths next to our changeroom, so we normally jump in those for six minutes after each session. There’s a big lactic build-up after most of these sessions, so you want to get in the baths as soon as possible and flush that lactic out. You’ve also got to be very flexible as a frontrower, so we’re all involved in yoga programs over the pre-season. We also do plenty of stretching around our gluts and hip flexor muscles because your hips cop a real hammering in scrums.“As a frontrower you also want to be getting plenty of food in – maintaining your weight is very important. People would be surprised by how much a footballer eats. You’re on the field for a long time and you’re burning a lot of energy, so you have to eat a lot of meat, chicken, carbohydrates, protein shakes to maintain your weight and energy. I suppose our calorie intake would be roughly double the average person’s.”

Homework

“On the Monday after a game the frontrowers normally gather and look at the footage from the weekend. It’s all cut up so we can jump straight on the computers and examine the scrums. Most scrums can be viewed from three or four camera angles, to get a complete idea of the shape and movement of the scrum. Once we’ve reviewed that footage, discussed it in a meeting, we then wipe the slate and begin examining our opponents for the upcoming weekend. “The main focus leading into a game is our ball, making sure we get nice clean ball on our feed. When the opposition see they have no opportunities for attacking your ball, it can really sap their confidence. After that we look at opportunities where we can attack the other scrum. For example, we might target a certain scrum as having a weaker tight-head, so we’ll be looking to drive through him. Or we might see the entire scrum as being a little loose – the binds, the grips, the general body shapes – so we’ll look at going right through the middle of them. To an untrained eye all scrums look fairly similar, but a change of set-up or a change of a grip position can really alter the way a scrum goes forward. We have a lot of different options for the way we can set the scrum.”

Maintain the rage

“You have to have a mix of skill and strength as a frontrower – but you also have to enjoy scrummaging. It’s a high-impact area and if you go in a little bit soft, you can really get hurt. Even if your technique’s not quite right, if you bring that aggression it can save you.”

– Aaron Scott