Jackson Hughes

Jackson wears 2 at hooker, sits in the leadership group, and is one of the most popular lads in the squad.

Hooker is a strange and demanding job. You are a front row forward, so you take the full weight of a scrum through your neck and shoulders, and you are expected to carry and tackle like any other forward. But you also have one skill nobody else in the team is asked for: throwing into the lineout. Every single one has to be straight, at the right height, to the right man, with the opposition jumping to pick it off. Get it wrong and you have handed the ball away in front of everybody.

That is the pressure Jackson signs up for every week. The set piece is where a game is quietly won or lost, and the hooker is at the middle of both halves of it. When our scrum holds and our lineout finds its man, the whole side gets to play. When it does not, everything else gets harder.

He is in the leadership group for good reason. The middle of the front row is a natural organising position, and that instinct carries into everything else he does: getting the pack lined up, keeping heads right when a game is drifting, and making sure the right thing happens at the right time rather than waiting for somebody else to say it. He also chips in at the other end of the pitch, with his try in the corner against Ferndale giving the side hope with five minutes left.

And then there is the part that does not show up in any match report. Jackson is simply a very good lad to have around. New players get made welcome, teammates get picked up after a mistake, and the mood around the squad is better for him being in it. Every team needs players like that at least as much as it needs the ones who score the tries.

#uppachurch