Lock depends on what the team needs. Could be any position really.
A 3rd prop. Eg Ese Ese
An impact forward Eg Taumalolo
A workhorse forward. EG Gallen
A ball playing forward EG Greg Bird (dont really see these any more)
Disagree.
It’s not what the team needs, it’s who they have. You can only work with what you’ve got.
Almost every single team in the league, despite what they “need” (impact, workhorse, ball playing, etc.), would take Taumalolo or Trbojevic as their starting lock over whoever else they have.
An example of it not being what they need but who they’ve got to work with is Cronulla. You say they need a workhorse forward like Gallen. Funny how that changed to them “needing” a skilled ball playing forward in Paulo when Gallen wasn’t available due to injury. Paulo didn’t automatically pickup the workhorse role, he just did him.
To put it another way, when Pearce went down we badly needed a controller and a playmaker. Because that’s what we needed in the halves, that didn’t automatically make our five-eighth position go from a runner to a ball player. Watson is playing that position for us, and despite what we need from that position now, he can only be him and play his game. Likewise when Watson was that “ideal” running five-eighth outside Pearce. When he got injured and Lamb played 6, that didn’t automatically make him become a running half in the mould of Watson. No. Lamb just played his game.
Do you think Ponga is the way he is because Brown said “we need a ball playing playmaker at fullback”? No. That’s just Ponga’s strength and his natural game. If he gets injured and we have to play someone else fullback, good luck getting them to play that exact same playmaking role because “that’s what we need”. Won’t happen.
Coaches can have preferences in what they want in a position and player, but 99% of the time it’s solely the player and what the team has to work with.