This weekends fixtures in the Rugby World Cup showed yet again how far the lower tier nations have come in the last few years.

Georgia were immense against England. They are now getting to the stage where their raw strength and power is now being expressed in rugby playing terms.

A lot of the former Soviet states put strength and power right at the top of the desired physical characteristics in their culture. As rugby players it is important that you can express the ability to generate immense levels of power and strength into usable movements on a rugby pitch.

Let’s take a look at the stand out man from Sunday’s encounter. Georgia’s Gorgodze showed how to put the power and strength into real usable rugby playing ability. His running tackling and rucking were outstanding. It’s a real pleasure to see players like this really shine. Having said that he was voted the most outstanding foreign player in France’s Tops 14 competition last year, and there are a number of high profile world class players plying their trade over there.

The game between Ireland and Australia also showed how important technique is, in order to succeed at the highest level. The Australian front row were absolutely decimated by the Irish front three. I have no doubt that gym stats may well tell you that these rugby players are of almost equal strength and power, but it is how you apply that that is more important.

I think Australia are still suffering from the time when they cut live scrummaging from the game until players reached the Colts level. What that in fact did was not give these props the chance to learn their trade as they came up through the ages groups. Learning how to scrummage and defend against certain illegal binds/body angles is one of those skills you learn as you play. It’s the same with the back row boys who end up playing prop they just don’t get enough time (in most cases to learn the trade). It doesn’t matter if you’re the strongest and most powerful prop in the world, with out the correct technique you could be made in to mince meat…it’s a very technical skill.

The quickest and strongest don’t always make the best rugby players…but if you have rugby skills it helps make great rugby players into outstanding rugby athletes.

Look out for the next post on how to develop power.