'Porter can do it, Thomas du Toit... we’ll see how Asher gets on'

Nathan Catt was in his element the other day. He had popped up on Zoom to generally preview Friday night’s England versus Wales U20s clash at The Rec. This he did with aplomb, fielding match-specific questions from several journalists keen on the inside track ahead of the round two age-grade Six Nations fixture.

RugbyPass, though, invited the retired Bath prop to journey down the rabbit hole of his specialist subject – scrummaging. He enjoyed a lengthy playing career at loosehead before injury counted him out in 2020.

Now it is consuming him again as a 36-year coach whose scrum coordinator role with the RFU currently has him on deck helping to ensure Mark Mapletoft’s young pack of forwards is up to scratch at the set-piece.

The hot topic, however, for this piece is props that can cover both sides of the scrum. This positional flexibility was all the rage back in the day when only one prop sat on the bench and had to cover loose and tight. Now, with specialists for each propping position accommodated in the reserves ever since eight-strong benches were permitted in 2009, front row variation is rare.

It’s No1 and 17 on the loose, No3 and 18 at tight and never the twain shall meet. Unless, of course, you are the double trouble Asher Opoku-Fordjour. Alex Sanderson’s Sale unleashed him this winter at tighthead in the Gallagher Premiership and in Europe… and he thrived. However, without missing a beat, he is also being used at loosehead by England age-grade.

What is seldom is wonderful then, but why is that that way? “It’s unbelievably hard to play both sides,” said Catt when asked by RugbyPass to explain this anomaly. "There are not many people that can do both sides well. Like, genuinely well. I think it’s easier to go from tight to loose.

“We played Asher at loosehead last year, but he was a tighthead. Afo (Fasogbon) was doing well at tighthead with Tim Hoyt and then Asher came in and he was disruptive at loosehead. We were like, ‘Okay, if it means we can get both guys on the pitch at the same time, then let’s look at using Asher at loosehead’.

“But obviously he has then gone back to Sale and done really well at tighthead. So in answer to your question, it’s really hard to do both well but some players can do it. (Andrew) Porter can do it, Thomas du Toit at Bath can do it. We’ll see how Asher gets on. So far he is doing pretty well with it.

“A 19-year-old tighthead in the Prem, it’s pretty impressive. And then to come in and do as well as he has done for us at loosehead and in the first game so far (against Italy U20s last week), he is doing well. But I do think it is harder to do now than it probably ever has been. Just the technicalities of it.”

Tell us more about those important details. “Most tightheads are pretty massive now so it would be hard to go from loosehead to tighthead unless you have got either exceptional strength or mass or probably a little bit of both. Everything is just so refined around the set-up.

“The tiniest bit of foot movement can allow you to apply pressure, bind heights; there are just so many little nuances you have to know the feeling of in both positions to be kind of optimum in the best way of doing it. It’s probably easier for a tighthead to go to loosehead.

“Basically as a tighthead, you have got a hooker and a loosehead on either side of you so if you get it wrong you really get it wrong. As a loosehead, you kind of get spat out the side and there is a little bit more give essentially. Feel is probably the most important thing, being able to feel what the scenario is and how you adapt to it.

“How I think about it is you almost get a technical process which you want your scrummage to look like and then you can apply that into how you engage, how you set up how you engage. But then after that, you almost need tactical solutions – ie, if a tighthead is doing X, Y, Z, how do I problem-solve X, Y, Z?

“If you are doing both sides you need to be able to feel and understand what the scenario is to how you can adapt to it, so I just think it takes a long time to build up to that repertoire for both sides.”

Catt wrapped up his answer by apologising for it perhaps sounding long-winded. It wasn’t. Every rugby nause would appreciate the insight – and the coach didn’t end his judgement there. The scrum came in for abuse at the recent Rugby World Cup, its critics insisting that its influence on the sport should be diluted. The England assistant doesn’t agree.

“I love it. Of course I love it, it’s my job. But for me, it’s probably one of the only aspects where you almost have like a closed skill. It’s almost like a game within a game where you just get eight men going against eight men and it’s like who can genuinely push each other backwards and then you have to do that over 80 minutes under more and more fatigue.

“I don’t think there are many other aspects in the game of rugby where you just get that consistent competitiveness, eight on eight, actually one on one, however, you want to view it, like a genuine battle where there is no hiding, there are no other factors. It’s literally, ‘How are we going to push this other team backwards?’”

Catt had quite the celebratory baptism in the sport as a player. He was part of the 2008 Grand Slam-winning England U20s who then went on to reach the Junior World Championship final, exposure that helped to fast-track him through to the Bath first team. What’s his perspective on age-grade rugby now; do results matter more or is preparing the best next-gen professionals the main objective?

“Winning’s important,” he admitted. “You always want to win, you go out to win. But for me, there are always a couple of variants to results. Like, if we say winning and losing is the ultimate result, are we getting that right whereas if we are a pathway, is the result for us getting eight (senior) internationals from this (U20s) squad, for example?

“I suppose it’s where you are defining your goals. As a senior team, it’s winning, 100 per cent. As a pathway, the players need to understand and have the opportunity to win and for that to be a part of the sport because ultimately that is what it is, particularly at international level, but also the player pathway has to be up there. It is probably the biggest priority; we are trying to produce players to go and play and thrive in an England senior team.

“It depends on where you put the results. For me as a scrum coach, of course, you want to win the games and I also want our scrum to look great but it’s how will we give the opportunities for players to go and have the technical ability and tactical understanding to then go and progress when they start going into their first teams.

“Or if they are ready, like an Asher who we have spoken about, how do we give him the best opportunity to go and thrive and hopefully push onto higher levels and then do well up there.”

It was late 2020, at the back end of the lockdown in England, when Catt was forced to call it quits as a player, but he retired fully armed and ready to make good the tuition that now has him on the RFU payroll. “I was fortunate; I say fortunate – I was injured for 18 months with Bath and while trying to rehab, I was able to go and coach as an academy coach and then when I retired, thankfully a job came up in Bath academy.

“So my transition was relatively as seamless as you can get in having a career-ending injury and coming out of it. There was a kind of coaching pathway development opportunity into a full-time job in the scrum pathway job where I currently am.

“This is what I always wanted to do, I wanted to go and coach, so mine was relatively seamless after finishing. It worked well and I have enjoyed every aspect of it so far. I was fortunate; I had some really good people to work with and learn from.

“As a player, you have got your set model of how you do things but essentially you don’t know how to teach or teach optimally whereas in Bath academy three of the other coaches were ex-teachers. All of a sudden you went, ‘Alright, you might have some decent technical knowledge around X, Y, Z which you know as a front row forward, but it’s how you are getting it best across to the players’.

“I learned so much from those guys [Craig Lilley and co], so that worked well in my favour in that I’m probably pretty rubbish in a lot of aspects of this and how do I now get better at teaching these players to hopefully have some information that I can share with them.”