England duo Tuilagi, Lawes named in magazine's Top 12 Hitters list

Four current players were included in the Top 12 Hitters list recently published by Rugby World magazine. England duo Manu Tuilagi and Courtney Lawes, Argentina’s Marcos Kremer and Pieter-Steph du Toit, the Springboks back-rower who was named player of the match in the 2023 Rugby World Cup final, joined eight retired players in a selection featuring the sport’s most ferocious defenders.

The retired Samoa trio Trevor Leota, Brian Lima and Maurie Fa’asavalu, France’s Sebastien Chabal, South Africa’s Schalk Burger, Scotland’s Jason White, New Zealand’s Jerry Collins and Namibia’s Jacques Burger all made the list of “howitzers who have decimated ball-carriers”.

Explaining their idea, Rugby World wrote: “We have all seen the big hits that make you wince; the thundering shoulder that cuts an attacker in half and has the crowd collectively giving it an ‘Oooh!’ All legal, all-out mayhem. And it’s part of the game we love.

“But who is the all-time master? We have run through the names from Pieter-Steph du Toit to Chabal and Collins. Putting these monsters in any sort of order could be folly – so just enjoy the savagery of all in any order you like.”

The list started with Chabal, who was “capable of carnage, a big fan of it in fact”. Next up was Tuilagi: “He is a devastating carrier in top form, but the defensive side of his game is just as brutal”. Leota was described as an “Exocet missile”, with Schalk Burger named as a guy who “loved confrontation”.

Lima’s snippet was accompanied by four pictures of the “masterpiece” that was his 2003 shot on South Africa’s Derick Hougaard, White was recognised for “bone-crunching hits”, Fa’asavalu for being “horrible to play against”, and Collins as “pound for pound, he hit harder than anyone”.

Kremer was lauded for breaking the World Cup record for most tackles in the tournament, topping the chart with 92 at France 2023, nine more than Taulupe Faletau’s 2011 record of 83.

The list then ended with Lawes, “the nemesis of every fly-half”, Jacques Burger, who once made “a shoulder-melting 37 tackles” in a game for Saracens versus Exeter, and du Toit, the “Malmesbury Missile” feted by Rassie Erasmus for “putting the opposition on their backsides”.