Will Skelton: Australia yet to see best of 150kg menace with size 19 feet

Whenever you talk about Will Skelton, you have to start with the bare facts. Height: 6ft 8in. Weight: anywhere between 135kg and 150kg (21-23st). Shoe size: US 19 (UK 18 — he gets his boots custom made in Japan, and they look like white tugboats).

The British & Irish Lions forwards coach, John Fogarty, called him a “menace” and “destructive”; his opposite lock Ollie Chessum — 6ft 7in himself — said he was “a huge human being” while Maro Itoje, the captain and a former team-mate of Skelton’s from Saracens, called him a “talisman” thanks to his “dynamism, size and power”. Meanwhile the other Australian players joked about how the nutritionists sighed when he came back into camp, as the food bill took a battering.

“He actually forgot his debit card,” said the full back Tom Wright this week, “so he’s been leaning on a few of the boys to shout him lunch, which has been expensive.”

A size 19, Skelton has to have his boots custom made in Japan HENRY BROWNE/GETTY IMAGES

So Skelton, 33, is a giant in a big man’s game. Then you have to mention the medals. Skelton has been part of four Champions Cup-winning teams — two Saracens, two La Rochelle — and has one Super Rugby and two Premiership titles in his large back pockets.

He is also something of a Leinster whisperer, having been central to the physical onslaughts Ronan O’Gara’s La Rochelle team have brought to the Irish, beating them in one semi-final and two finals of the Champions Cup. When he has had the wood over Leinster, he has let them know about it during the game, riling them with persistent sledging.

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“I think if you put pressure on any team, they can crack,” Skelton said of that.

“I don’t do it [talking during game] on purpose. I don’t pre-plan stuff. I try to play how I play in the moment; whatever I’m feeling at the time. Usually when I’m talking, it’s trying to hide that I’m tired! When I’m talking, I’m not thinking about breathing, so that helps. I’d rather people can hear me talk than hear me heavy breathing on the mic.”

Skelton is fond of sledging, though he says he employs the tactic to cover up when he is tired CRAIG WATSON/INPHO/SHUTTERSTOCK

Menace indeed.

All of this is why Joe Schmidt — who is not quite a card-carrying Skelton fan — has picked Big Will for the big one at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Saturday, the second Test of the Lions series. This pedigree that Skelton brings is alien to many of the other Wallabies.

“His experience and his history of being involved in successful teams, particularly with La Rochelle in Europe, just gives other players confidence,” Schmidt said. “We’ve got a group of players who haven’t won too much in recent times, whether it’s in Super Rugby or whether it’s internationally. He brings a confidence and a calmness to the group. He’s a big man, he’s big-hearted as well — hopefully not on Saturday.”

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Wright added: “He’s a great leader, and is someone who connects the Islander group with the non-Pasifika players too — he has good friendships throughout. It’s incredible to see him come in, gel and be so jovial around the group.”

The Aussies know how he can dominate in the maul, and how he feels in the scrum. Heavy.

Skelton has helped La Rochelle outmuscle Leinster in recent years RAMSEY CARDY/SPORTSFILE/GETTY IMAGES

And yet, Australia has never seen the best of Skelton. We, who largely watch our rugby up north, have ultimate respect for him. Time and time again he has delivered on the greatest stages, as one of the behemoth forwards of the Top14. Anyone wearing a red jersey who saw his name on the Australian team sheet this week would have shivered a little.

But in his home country, Skelton does not have this reputation. Remarkably, he has won only 32 Wallaby caps as Rugby Australia rules blocked him from playing for his country for five years between 2016 and 2021, while he was abroad.

There have been no “Skelton games” in the Rugby Championship, or in Bledisloe Cup slobberknockers. Of his 32 Tests, Australia have won just 11, and he has started only 14 of those. Compare that win rate, of 34 per cent, with that of La Rochelle — 67 per cent — and Saracens — 74 per cent — and you get the idea.

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With Australia, he was never really been fancied at first, then when he was, and Eddie Jones made him captain for the 2023 World Cup, he pulled a calf in training, and watched from the sidelines as his team lost to Fiji and then were knocked out in the pool stages for the first time.

Maybe, then, it is not a surprise that Schmidt did not pick Skelton last week for the first Test. Skelton was privately telling his friends that he was fit, but Schmidt told the public that he was not. Even now, with Skelton selected, the head coach has said he has picked a 6-2 bench to cover him, in case he and the returning flanker Rob Valetini cannot last the distance.

Skelton won the Premiership and Champions Cup twice when he was at Saracens GLYN KIRK/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

O’Gara would not dream of talking about his big lock like this. So it is high time, in the minds of Australians, that Skelton showed his homeland the form that gives him such a stunning reputation from Europe.

It will be wet at the MCG on Saturday. A night, then, for mauling, brawling, clanging and banging. Skelton should be at the heart of it, beefing up a meek and mild Wallabies pack.

And if he can help to deliver them a priceless victory, to level the Lions series, maybe the Australians will take him into their hearts at long last. So, will the real Will Skelton please stand up?

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