[su_dropcap style=”default” size=”3″ class=””]W[/su_dropcap]hen it comes to young talent, there’s sometimes a battle between promoting the athlete without the leadership x-factor all the while hoping that he can develop those later and promoting the leader/talker who doesn’t have top-end athleticism while hoping that he can somehow crash through that glass ceiling as competition scales up.
This happens (and certainly happened past tense) quite a bit more than you’d realise. Say you have a young second row who’s a great trainer, a great lad to have around the camp, a body on the line type of guy and he instinctively understands the lineout on both sides of the throw – perfect captain material. The only problem is that he’s 6’3″ togged out at 20 years of age, he has an average wingspan, he’s getting beaten into the air by taller, longer, more explosive guys even though he sees what’s happening before they do and he’s already losing collisions more than you’d like. He doesn’t really have the explosivity or carrying game to make it to a “half-lock” blindside/loosehead lock hybrid either but you think maybe with top-level S&C that might change. Maybe he’s a late bloomer, physically, and you promote him because he’s got that aura of a captain about him and he’s driven. It’s a risk all the same. This player is more vulnerable to injury straight out the gate and they could be one of those guys who has the brain of a top player but the body of a guy who never quite makes it.
On the other side of it, you’ve got the athlete. He’s a second row too but his fundamentals of the position are a bit underdeveloped; maybe he finds the lineout calls difficult to understand and he’s not naturally skilled with the ball but he’s 6’7″ in his socks, has an insane wingspan and a frame that could easily support 120kg+. He’s not the best passer, sure, but he’s an animal with the ball in his hand running in a straight line. That said he’s not a talker – at all – and he really needs a lot of work on some of the fundamentals of the position.
As good an athlete as he is, this guy is a risk too because, while he’s all there physically, his ability to scale up mentally to the top-end of the game is something of a question mark. You can coach him, sure, but what if the complex parts of the game never click with him?
A lot of players will fall across this spectrum and, while these are extreme, imaginary examples, I’m writing about them to give a broken down picture of what a youth system has to process when assessing players to promote to an academy contract. Ideally, you’d get a top-end athlete with all the mental capacities you’d want more or less already in place.
Without meaning to put too much pressure or expectation onto Alex Kendellen, I think he’s that ideal type of player.
I’m not saying that he’s a cert to go on to be a top international or a Lion or anything like that because he’s still only 19 and lots of things can happen between now and whatever awaits in his best possible future. What I am saying that if you wanted to pick a player who’s got a real chance of making it as a top back row, you’d go with someone that has Alex Kendellan’s credentials.
He’s an underage captain at school, province and international level so, outside of anything else, we know that a succession of coaches have thought that this guy was the right guy to lead their group – that tells a big story all on its own.
But, athletically speaking, he looks to have most of what you’d want in a young back-row prospect already in place.
There are no official stats on his height/weight as of this point, but he looks around 6’1″/6’2″ to me and looks to have a big frame that’s already supporting some good size at 19 years of age and coming straight out of secondary school. He’s got an excellent physical base that you would imagine is only going to get built on in the full academy set up in the coming months.
Kendellen is a player who’ve I seen quite a lot of over the past two years and you could see straight away that the fundamentals of his game were incredibly strong. Munster Rugby live-streamed the recent Pres vs St Munchin’s Munster Senior Cup semi-final here and it’s a real example of what Alex Kendellen, the starting #8 for Pres on the day, can do.
Kendellen looks well further on athletically than any other player on the pitch, for a start, so we have to take that into consideration with our review.
Defence
Kendellen is one of the best defenders I’ve seen at this level for a number of years. A lot of younger players aren’t naturally predisposed to the defensive side of the game and I think it’s fair to say that a lot of what gets a lot of young back rows noticed would be their work on the offensive side of the ball. Kendellen’s offensive work is really good too, but his defence consistently stands out to me.
Watch him here on this set – he’s the player with the yellow boots arriving late to the C position.
That’s a strong, powerful finish to assist the initial tackle and drive the opposition back. When you look at the way that PBC used Kendellen defensively, you see his power being focused in the tight areas of the defensive line. He positions himself in a tight guard position close to the ruck as the ball tracks across the field.
This gives puts him in the perfect position to use his powerful, low tackle to drive back the opposition’s heavy ball carriers. He’s got really a really strong tackle technique and excellent leg drive that allows him to soak the initial contact before driving through for a dominant finish.
It also puts him in jackal range, where he’s a strong, dominant poacher of the ball. Again, you look at his strong legs, low centre of gravity and a strong core in moments like this but it’s not just physicality – he’s got really good timing, instincts and a solid “short entry” technique that makes him a difficult player to remove from the ball when he clamps on, at underage level at least.
If that scales up as he develops on physically, it could be a potent part of his arsenal as a professional. But he’s not just a big physical stopper close to the ruck – he’s got top class speed and acceleration off the back of the scrum. St Munchin’s saw the scrum as an area to get some good centre-field position without Kendellen’s attention but he foiled them again and again with some really strong defensive launches off the back of the scrum.
Look at the distance he covers on these sets and the acceleration on that last try-saving tackle in the corner.
That is just straight-up impressive.
Attack
On the offensive side of the ball, Kendellen looks like he’s got the ability to develop into a heavy ball carrier if he develops along the lines of how he plays right now. He reminds me a little of Tom Curry in the way in which he carries the ball, especially when he’s taking it off #9. You’ll see it here;
He gets low, he gets at a 45-degree contact angle and he gets his legs doing the work to power through the defence for decent close range gains off #9. His two tries in this contest came directly from this aspect of his game and St Munchin’s really struggled to handle him as a unit.
Pres used Kendellen as a primary ball carrier for them off #9 and he was consistently successful in committing defenders and winning tough metres close in.
He can do more than truck it up, though – he’s got deceptive footwork, powerful acceleration and evasion to match, even in close quarters.
This break lead to try in the far corner but you can see the strong fundamentals again
Kendellen is also a really hard worker on transition attack. When he senses a kick is coming from the opposition, he regularly drops into the backfield to act as a big counter-attacking runner or support option.
Here are a few examples – watch for the black & white #8 with the yellow boots working hard to get back in the “transition chain”.
This last example of Kendellen taking the ball off the first transition ruck is a good illustration of his wider skillset. He’s got the pace to consistently work back into useful positions on transition and then the offloading ability to create the break.
A lesser player might have buried himself in the ruck here but Kendellen knows where he’s most dangerous and makes sure he’s in position to make something happen.
At the offensive breakdown, Kendellen is accurate and technically sound off first phase possession, on phase play and in moments of breakdown transition where reaction time and force are most important.
Once again, you look at his low centre of gravity and his leg drive as being key factors in this element of his game but that physicality is bolstered by good instincts and sharp, powerful technique.
I didn’t see a whole lot of Kendellen jumping in the lineout, although he did act as a non-jumping lifter and heavy receiver on a few occasions over the times that I’ve seen him. He was mostly used by PBC as a hitter in midfield off the lineout whenever I’ve watched him – effectively too – so I’m not really sure what his jumping is like because I haven’t seen enough of it. He might well add that to his game as he develops but for now, it’s a bit of a question mark. He doesn’t have to be a regular lineout jumper – plenty of top-class backrows aren’t – but we’ll see how it develops as he develops.
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If I was to put an early archetype on Kendellen, it would probably be a Heavy Action Flanker. If that scales up to full senior level, – boy, we have got a player here. He’s played primarily as a #8 at underage level but I could easily see him making up part of a back row with another Action Flanker and a half-lock at #6, or as a heavy openside in another configuration.
As I mentioned earlier, Kendellen reminds me a lot of Tom Curry in the way he approaches the game. The strong ball carrying, the defensive work rate, the powerful jackal – it’s all there. The only question is how it’ll scale up with the increase in standard. You’d imagine that – injury and COVID19 allowing – Kendellen will play U20 rugby for Ireland this term. If he wasn’t in school this year, he could probably have played a part in this season’s U20 Six Nations; he’s that far along physically, in my opinion.
How Kendellen goes with the step up in standard to the Munster Academy proper and, I assume, the U20 international set up, remains to be seen but I genuinely think that if he avoids serious injury for the rest of the year and kicks into a strong pre-season, I think there’s very little that Alex Kendellen can’t do with a bit of luck.
