When your dad is Keith Wood — a legendary player in his own right, and arguably one of the best players ever to play this sport — there is a level of pressure that comes with that from the minute you decide to pick up a rugby ball. Only two front row players have ever won the World Player of the Year award. Malcolm Marx was one, just last year, and Keith Wood was the other; the inaugural winner, in fact.
As a young player, you are viewed through that prism, rightly or wrongly, and it can be a crushing pressure to develop under. Everyone you play against knows who you are and who your dad was. Everyone who coaches you or against you knows it, too. The Wood name is a heavy one to bear, because it actually means “greatness” and “implied greatness” before you’ve ever done a single thing in the game.
When you multiply that by playing at #10, the highest pressure position in the sport at any level, you’ve got to have something about you.
Luckily for Tom Wood, he absolutely does.
A few things are notable about Tom Wood. First, this is his second U20 campaign. He made his debut last season, a year young, midway through the tournament and started every game afterwards through the U20 World Championship. That’s notable in and of itself. Secondly, he’s already made his senior debut as a pro while playing this year’s U20 Six Nations as Ireland’s starting #10, which, sure, was injury-enforced at Munster, but is incredibly significant all the same.
The last player that happened to — albeit after the Six Nations was complete — was Leinster’s Sam Prendergast, and you don’t need me to tell you about the rocket that was strapped to him in the seasons to follow.
That normally doesn’t happen in Ireland because it’s generally agreed that #10 is an incredibly high-pressure position — either starting or off the bench as a replacement — and players who are still in their U20 campaign won’t be able to hack it.
But not Tom Wood.
When Clayton McMillan was asked about Tom Wood ahead of that game against Glasgow, he said the following;
“This opportunity for Tom has come along probably a little earlier than we all anticipated, but there’s no denying his talent. It might upset a few Irish people, but I see a lot of Stephen Larkham in the guy.
“He’s long-limbed, tall, feels like he has a lot of time, which is a really great quality. So if he gets this opportunity to go out there, I know it’ll be a proud, proud moment for himself and his family […] he’s a prodigious talent – great left foot boot, sound goal-kicker. And as I said, he just seems to be one of those people that has time.”
At 6’2″ and 92kg — there or thereabouts — you’d be tempted to describe Wood as languid, but that doesn’t tell anything near to his actual build. He’s tall, compared to most #10s, and that can sometimes mean stiffness, or a lack of pace, but he’s really quick, both off the mark and in full-flight, which gives him a key point of difference to other flyhalves in his weight class.
He’s almost an athlete first, a baller second, but don’t mistake that for a lack of playmaking skills. He’s really good at using his natural gravity to force compressions, before fizzing passes really well off either side.
Some of these passes are incredibly difficult, technically, but he seems to move the ball effortlessly with real pace and shape on the ball.
He’s not really a slave to technique either. You’ll often find some young #10s readjusting for the perfect grip and release, but Wood doesn’t hold himself to that. He’s good at getting the ball there when it needs to go with pace first, control a close second. It depends on the moment, because he’s really good at not panicking under close defensive pressure, which is something a lot of young #10s only get comfortable with later in their career.
This is an example I’d picked out for his kicking — left-footed, which is always a bonus — but it fits this example well. He had decided on the kick pretty early on the play, and decided it would be a shallow enough one, crossfield. As a left-footed kicker, his swinging leg was going to be closer to any blitzing defenders and, as such, would be easier to charge down.
He nails it. Easy to bail on that one, but he had the bottle to stick with it.
What I probably like best about Wood’s game is his IQ and how comfortable he is floating in space. He’s best at first receiver, as you’d expect, but he’s well able to switch sides phase on phase, he’s got the pace to do it really effectively, and he’s comfortable drifting into the second layer too, with the pace and power to be dangerous once he gets there.
He picks his spots really well.
To get a proper look, check out this long sequence from the game against England, and zone in on Wood. It’s got everything. His first two passes are really tight, dangerous ones that get the ball to the man with space to hit.
You’ll see him controlling a scuffed pass with his foot, right back up into his hand and taking contact. Hitting a ruck to win the ball back on the ground, and then scanning, seeing the space behind the English line-up last and hitting a perfect chip over the top, which would have almost certainly been a try if not for a marginal offside on the chase that wasn’t needed.
The kick was perfect.
He’s not an android, running a script; he’s got the confidence to play what he sees, and he’s done really well this Six Nations when he’s been able to bounce off the compressions forced by James O’Leary, who’ll be up next in this series.
You can see that working here, albeit imperfectly. He runs the pinch line well, but sees early that Wales have cut off the outside pass. Scattier #10s would throw the pass anyway — make it someone else’s problem.
He doesn’t. Rejects the pass, cuts back inside, gets a decent collision and presents it to go again. It’s a small thing, but the more you watch Tom Wood’s game, the more of the small things you see in the places they normally show up at 22/23, after lots of pro exposure.
As I mentioned, Wood is left footed and, like most left-footed kickers for some reason, he’s got a Big Left Boot. There doesn’t seem to be any other kind. As you’d expect of someone with those long levers, he absolutely nukes exits and anything he needs distance on with really good consistency.
But it’s not just power either — he’s really accurate and deft when needs be, as well as being an excellent, bordering on unflappable goal kicker.
He’s not the complete package as of yet, but I’ve watched a lot of 20s over the last ten years, and the only #10s I can remember with their game this pulled together at this age are Jack Crowley and Harry Byrne.
That’s a good thing — as long as the kick-on is there too. That comes back to mentality, most of the time. A good #10 has to be aware of his strengths and weaknesses, but a great #10 has to have the iron-clad belief that he’s the best, most influential player on the field, even when that might not technically be true.
That’s especially true of young #10s, who will almost always have a moment that goes sideways for them. That’s already happened with Wood, after an outstanding debut performance for Munster off the bench in Scotstoun that ended with a missed kick down the line late in the game that ultimately led to the killer score for Glasgow up the other end.
It happens. Everyone from Johnny Sexton to Dan Biggar to Finn Russell and everyone in between has had a moment like that, but the key part for them is that they just forgot about it. Or were angered by it. Wood, I think, was probably fuming with himself.
Because almost everything else he showed on the field that night was confidence. Belief. Look at how comfortable he is in the second layer here, taking a pop pass and then delivering a perfect inside ball at pace.
Look at how comfortably he held the space on the pass to Abrahams that led to a try. That’s something you both can and can’t coach. You can tell players to do just that, to wait as long as possible to hold the defence. You can coach the release of the pass to make sure it’s as accurate as possible in a very tight window.
But the confidence and ability to do that in your debut, with the 20s Six Nations kicking off a week or so later, is the kind of thing you can’t coach. It’s those things that Wood has in spades, and it’s his key differential.
Some young lads feel the limelight and almost shrink back from it as a reflex. I think Tom Wood is a guy who wants that pressure. He wants to feel the heat. I think he’s comfortable there.
And I think, before long, he’ll be a matchday regular for Munster. From there, there’s no telling where a guy with that skillset, that mindset, and that hardiness can go.
