It is a big rugby weekend for the George family. On Saturday, Jamie George captains unbeaten Saracens in their trip across London to high-flying Harlequins. Around the same time, another top-of-the-table clash kicks off when Salisbury travel to Towcestrians, coached by Jamie’s uncle Robbie, in South West 1 East.
Last Thursday after completing his training at Saracens, Jamie George travelled up to Northamptonshire to assist Robbie with his final team run. It is a service he happily provides, partly because it means that he can order his cousins, Tom and Chrissie, to do laps, but also for the debt he owes to Robbie.
While his father, Ian, was a dashing scrum-half and a wing, Robbie was a hooker of some repute for Northampton during the 1970s. It was Robbie who steered his nephew into following in his footsteps much to the chagrin of Jamie’s mother, Jane.
“My mum would always say, ‘No son of mine will ever play in the front row’, but whenever we came to uncle Rob’s house, he would say, ‘We will get a two on his back in no time’,” Jamie said. “I remember him drawing a mark on the wall that I used to throw a rugby ball at. My mum used to hate it.
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“Rob has had a massive impact in terms of the player I am with the amount of support he has given me. A lot of the reasons I play the game are to make him and my family proud. That became prominent to me before I won my first cap for England against France. That was the time where I thought about why I played the game and what motivates me the most and it came down to making people proud.”
The primary duties of a hooker remain the same today as they did in Robbie’s day, but the mechanics of those processes are virtually unrecognisable. Take hooking the ball in the scrum, an art form that had virtually died a death. “Whereas in the modern-day front rows have to be square on – square shoulders, square chest, square hips – the best hookers were the best cheats,” Robbie said.
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“Technically you had to be in a pushing position so it was a challenge what you could get away with. It was about getting a bind or losing a bind. Back then it was like a competition within a game. Everybody else was worried about the scoreboard but the hookers were more concerned about the strikes against the head.”
It is a skill that has enjoyed a renaissance, particularly since Eddie Jones’s Japan employed the tactic so effectively during the World Cup.
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George is widely regarded as the best striker of a ball in English rugby but in Saracens’ system he uses his knee rather than foot. “The fundamental difference is that the majority of the striking I do is of my knee because I want to be squarer and be in a scrummaging position,” George said.
In throwing too, the advent of lifting has transformed what sometimes resembled the scramble for a bride’s bouquet to a sequence of choreographed movements that would not look out of place at the Bolshoi Theatre.
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“Throwing was an art in my day but not to the level these guys are doing now,” Robbie said. “If I am being honest, it was a bit of a free for all. You would have five basic throws while Jamie probably has 20-30 different throws.”
For Jamie, his technique is bound up in an eight-stage routine designed to extract him from the heat of the battle towards the dispassionate focus of an archer. “I love that challenge,” he said. “Away from the rest of the game, it is this completely closed skill where your main focus is trying to lower your heart rate and making sure you are putting your body in the best position so you can get the ball from A to B. You have to completely clear your mind, which I find fascinating.”
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Such has been the evolution in these and other areas that it can be difficult to reconcile modern rugby with its forebears. The “it was better in my day” brigade is vociferous in its opinion, although it is not a school of thought to which Robbie subscribes. “The professional game has been nothing but great for the amateur game,” he said. “If you watch our third or fourth team play when I first came the standard was just dire.
“You had blokes on the pitch who were just relieved to get through the 80 minutes without an ambulance being called. You come watch our thirds and fourths now and they can all play rugby. Come here on a Sunday morning and you will have 350 kids bombing around the fields trying to emulate their heroes. That’s what professional rugby has done. It has brought the standard up across the board.”
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Many of those kids will hope to emulate Jamie, who is in line to be named in Eddie Jones’s first Elite Player Squad on Wednesday. He was by far England’s best hooker on form in 2015. Even if the World Cup ended in disappointment, it merely stoked his ambition. “Having tasted it a couple of times now, I am desperate for more.”
In many ways, Jamie resembles a throwback to his uncle’s age. The 25-year-old is far removed from the gym rat stereotype of the modern professional. During a time when rugby takes itself far too seriously for its own good, he also plays with a smile on his face; his connection to Towcestrians serves as a constant reminder of what the sport is really about.
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“It is very refreshing to come to a session like this,” Jamie said. “Some guys would have worked until 6.30 and then rushed to get here for 7pm. You see how important it is to those guys and how much fun they are having while they are playing.
“Sometimes when you are in the professional bubble you might forget that it is a sport that you love, it is something that you dreamt of doing as a kid. This makes you remember how privileged you truly are.”
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