Fairleigh Good! said:
The role of the hooker in the modern game has surely got to be more than simply passing it safely to the next runner?
Buderus did this effectively enough, but so could half the players in the pub leagues on a Sunday! He isn't a threat with the ball in his hand (On the evidence of the Ashes at least) and didn't do a thing from dummy half himself.
Cunningham at his best is in another league. He has sadly gone to pot since his injury but a few years ago he was liable to make 50 yard breaks a few times per game and was absolutely deadly near the line either himself, or with passes to people like Sculthorpe to run onto. He also tackled better than any prop forward. He was miles ahead of any hooker.
Damn shame what happened to him. I would have loved to have seen a fit Cunningham play in this Ashes Series.
Buderus doesn't just pass the ball to next runner as you put it - he has the ability to read the play to know who should get the ball and when. He has this ability because Andrew Johns has spent years training him up.
Buderus delivers the ball with perfect timing to the guy who is running into the gap or to the forward who has his momentum up but is still in good position to take the pass comfortably, or to the kicker who is in best position.
The problem with Buderus is that he does his job so well and with so little fuss that people don't even see him doing it - they just see forwards not dropping the ball and playmakers seeming to have all day to do their work without recognising that those guys can do that because of the quality of Buderus' work.
Buderus' first rep game was for NSW Country against city in which he played beside Kimmorley for the first time. Kimmorley revelled in the conditions so much that people were seriously talking about him being better than Johns, and the Kimmorley/Buderus combination this series has people saying the same thing.
When Mal Rielly came to Newcastle as a coach he brought an English hooker leigh Jackson with him. Jackson was a bit of a playmaker at hooker and Johns eventually refused to play with him because Johns needs a hooker who feeds him the ball when and where he needs it, so he trained up Buderus for the job.
In SOO Buderus has made guys like Timmins, Barratt, Johns, Minichello, Hodgson and others all look like bloody champions because they get the ball when they have a gap in front of them, perfectly, on their chests.
Buderus is also a well known runner from dummy half, but he only does it when it is the best option, which means he mostly does it when the rest of the side is not doing their job and are not giving him a better option.
Wing is a one trick pony, priddis is good but not in the same class, and cunningham is not even playing from the same playbook, because he is an oldfashioned 'small prop' type hooker rather than the new style 'big halfback' type favoured in Australia at the moment.
A lot of fans hate the fact that 'flashy' hookers who go for big runs in games are not preferred to Buderus, but any coach would take a hooker who will make every set play and every playmaker run like a well oiled machine every time.
