Richard Loe: Star euro packages not really a surprise

The news that New Zealand props are commanding some prime positions in European rugby - as well as prime salaries - is hardly a surprise when you think about it.

Prop is never a glorified nor a first-choice position. Ask anyone who has been involved with a kids' team. You have seven or eight loose forwards and seven or eight backs - but no front-rowers.

It isn't a "star" position but it is vital. No props, no game and, as the Australians are discovering, if your props are not good enough, then you struggle to win matches.

The selection of Census Johnson of Taranaki by Saracens for one of the biggest contracts in Europe shows the cycle is changing again. Johnson is a good player and a big man, but he is nowhere near the All Blacks yet and plainly found all that money hard to resist. Kees Meeuws is also on a big whack, by all accounts.

It used to be that Europe turned out the props. Now countries like France and England take advantage of the fact that New Zealand is fostering its front-rowers again after a long period of not doing so.

The Europeans also love the fact that players like Johnson and Meeuws are big, strong, and good scrummagers, can get around the field and are ball-players.

French props, for instance, are big and mean but they don't do so well out in the daylight, or if anyone gives them the ball.

I played in France in the 80s and in the early 90s for three years. The game has changed, of course, but you still really earn your money as a front-rower in France. They equate the scrum with manliness and honour. When I played for Vichy, I remember one match against Bordeaux. It was a bloodbath.

Instead of kicking off for the game, Bordeaux just tipped the ball off the kicking tee. Why? because that was a scrum - and that was where all the rum stuff got started and it didn't finish til the end of the game. We won 9-6, all penalties, and we won partly because we had the huge French lock Olivier Merle playing for us as well as his locking partner Franck Buffet, whose speciality was the big haymaker from the depths of the scrum.

Every game you play in France, you find that the local side pulls out some gnarled and horrible prop they were hiding in a cafe in the village.

But New Zealand is now turning out a lot of promising props again and their longevity is also good. Players like Greg Somerville must find their thoughts turning to Europe if they can get money like that towards the end of a career.

Some really good youngsters are on the way up - players like the 129kg Jamie Macktinosh of Southland and Wyatt Crockett of Canterbury. Both are big and mobile, especially Crockett, and are fast learning their jobs.