Rugby Union: Meet Dalton the hooker with attitude

The Springbok's master of mischief leads from the front row and enjoys every minute of it.

Chris Hewett
Thursday 19 November 1998 00:02 GMT
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THEY LEAD double lives, these hookers. Take this uppity tribe of hard-nut talkaholics out of the dark, ugly, front-row hell-hole that serves as their natural sporting habitat and you discover to your shock that some of them are really quite respectable. Richard Cockerill, for instance, was once a sensitive restorer of antique furniture, despite a range of Saturday afternoon antics that suggested first-hand experience of Chipperfield's rather than Chippendale. Brian Moore was a lawyer, Ken Kennedy, of Ireland, and Uli Schmidt, of South Africa, both doctors, Roger Vigier the most pious of Catholics. At least Vincent Moscato's outside interests explained a thing or two about his rugby. He dabbled in boxing.

As for our good friend James Dalton... well, you'll never guess. Especially if you are one of those who believe he might benefit from cleaning up his act just a touch. Dalton is a successful businessman, running his own manufacturing company back home in Johannesburg. And what does he manufacture? Detergents. Industrial cleaning materials. You can hear them now, hollering from the stands: "Spray some of that stuff in your own direction, you dirty @*&!"

"Bullet", as he is known to his fellow Springboks, was at it again at Wembley on Saturday, scrapping on the floor with the odd Welsh forward, nicking ruck ball from transparently offside positions and generally inserting himself firmly inside the left nostril of anyone not wearing the green of the Rainbow Nation, including Stuart Dickinson, the Australian referee.

"Hey, you can't play hooker without bringing a little attitude to what you do," he laughs. "It's one of the key roles in any rugby team, not only in terms of technique at scrum and line-out, which are vitally important areas, but in terms of generating some passion and energy right there in the eye of the storm. The hooker is at the centre of everything. You don't need a quiet guy in that position. You need some edge."

Not that Dalton is wholly ignorant of the perils of going one step beyond.

Having performed quite brilliantly in the opening game of the 1995 World Cup, when South Africa announced their candidacy by giving the reigning champions from Australia what for in Cape Town, he quickly found himself out of the tournament following an over-zealous contribution to an almighty dust-up with the Canadians in Port Elizabeth. The following year, he was temporarily drummed out of Super 12 competition for meting out some summary justice to a New South Wales forward.

But those who believe he came close to costing his country the game at Wembley would do well to remember that without him, the tourists might not have been in any position to win. It was Dalton's implacable hostility, the tidal wave of effort gushing from his compact frame, that helped paper over those Springbok cracks exposed so unexpectedly by an inspired Welsh pack. When he summons up that degree of strop-fuelled fury, he stands alongside his old foe Keith Wood, the Irish Harlequin, as the finest hooker in the game.

Such praise cuts little ice just at the moment. "Both individually and collectively, we're deeply disappointed with the quality of performance we produced at Wembley," he said. "I'm not one to make excuses for so dismal a display, but there were certain factors underlying what happened in the Welsh Test. It was our first game together for a while - many of us had not played any sort of serious rugby for six weeks - and I have to say that some of the refereeing interpretations at line-out time were on the interesting side, both when we had possession and when the Welsh were throwing in.

"But we've got to stand up and congratulate the Welsh on a big effort and, at the same time, look very carefully out ourselves. We can't afford to play like that against the Scots at Murrayfield on Saturday"

Born in Jo'burg 26 years ago, Dalton has played virtually all his provincial rugby in the Transvaal, starting out as a flanker before moving upwards and inwards towards the business end of the forward operation. He retains an abiding passion for life at Ellis Park, despite the Golden Lions' obvious difficulties in plugging the gaps left by the late Kitch Christie, who coached them to glorious pre-eminence, and Francois Pienaar.

"If you want to build a top side in the professional era, you need to spend the money," he explained succinctly. "When the team Kitch put together began to break up, there was no investment in quality. Now, finally, we're beginning to come up with some cash. It's not before time, either; Transvaal is a big, rich, powerful force in South African rugby and I, for one, do not consider a 60-40 success rate in Currie Cup competition to be nearly good enough."

When Transvaal join forces with the neighbouring Free State and Griqualand West provinces for next year's Super 12, Dalton will presumably renew his close working acquaintance with the gargantuan loose-head prop, Os du Randt, who missed this tour through injury. If Mark Regan, the former England hooker, was fond of describing his Bristol scrummaging partner Alan Sharp as his personal "armchair", Dalton might legitimately name "The Ox" as his three-piece suite. Together, they could anchor the Springboks all the way to a second successive World Cup triumph in Wales next November.

"I worry about Os, to be honest with you," said the hooker. "He is still a young player with enormous potential, a massive future in front of him. But those knees of his, they're a problem. When you're carrying his sort of weight into battle, you have to wonder how much punishment a few human ligaments can stand.

"It's been a blow, not having him around over the last few months. But guys like Robbie Kempson have come on really strong in his place, so I'm not at all negative about our scrummaging capacity."

Nor should he be, for Dalton has gone bristle to bristle with the very best.

In 1994 he made his Test debut against the great Puma triumvirate of Noriega, Mendez and Corral and subsequently went three 80-minute rounds with a certain Sean Fitzpatrick. In short, he has seen a few things in his five seasons as a Springbok.

"Sure, those Argentines can scrummage; they really are phenomenally strong and direct. But to my way of thinking, other parts of their game - their mobility, their fitness - do not stack up quite as well. Now Fitzy, he was a different problem altogether. He could do it all: scrummage, play football, lead a team by example, even referee the bloody game. There are a lot of very good individuals in rugby but very few real greats who put all the components together for the common good. Fitzy could do that and I respect him for it.

"Besides, the guy won 92 caps. I don't think we'll see anyone match that, not in a professional age where the demands on a player are so consistently, relentlessly high. You would need 10 years of international rugby to get there. I can't imagine lasting that long."

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