Long-time England half-back partners Ben Youngs and George Ford have named the greatest nine-10 combination of all time.
The pair have a combined 221 caps for England, many of which they have played together as scrum-half and fly-half, so they know a thing or two about a great combination.
According to Young, the most important thing is to secure players who play together at the same club, and the list of the top five combinations they came up with is proof of that.
In fact, of the top five teams, only the All Blacks, featuring Aaron Smith and Dan Carter, did not play club rugby together.
Ford recently joined Youngs and Dan Cole. For the love of rugby I made a list through podcasts.
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It included two Australian pairings, George Gregan-Stephen Larkham Link and Will Xenia-Kwade Cooper, who played for the Brumbies and the Reds (now Hanazono Kintetsu Liners) respectively.
The partnership of Antoine Dupont and Romain Ntamack is the only axis currently on the list (named after the best Xenia and Cooper), which has led both Toulouse and France.
Youngs and Ford are also included in this list, but that doesn’t break the trend of partners playing together at club level, as both have had long spells at Leicester Tigers.
“Aaron Smith and Dan Carter are definitely among them,” Ford said.
Youngs added: “They’re definitely in it. I agree. They’ve won two World Cups together. They’re in the top five, no doubt. Smith and Dan Carter haven’t played together at club level, but they’re in it.”
“I would say Genia and Quade Cooper are the best. They played together in the club and are still playing in Japan.
“It’s a great combination.”
“Those guys are still playing, but Dupont and Ntamac are very good. Dupont is the best player in the world. Of course they play together at Toulouse,” Ford said.
“Gregan and Rackham are legends,” Youngs said. “They have to be. They’re iconic. Obviously, they played together for the Brumbies, won a couple of Super Rugby titles, they’re legends in Australia.”
“I think we’ll be in it. Yeah, I think George and I will be in the top five. I pick the top five. It’s our podcast, and we want to be in it. So, George is part of the podcast family, so George, we made it.”
These two continued to receive honorable mentions.
“Obviously (Johnny) Sexton and (Conor) Murray are a combination,” Youngs said. “If you want to get back to that, you’ve got (Peter) Stringer and (Ronan) O’Gara.”
Ford added: “Mike Phillips and Dan Bigger have had a couple of successful years, winning Grand Slams. They’re tough to come by, aren’t they?”
Youngs continued: “As I said, there’s a bit of a theme here. There’s a lot of synergy. If you want to be successful at international level, you have to get your half-backs playing together every week.”
“Will Faf de Klerk and Pollard go too? Two World Cups, no question about it.”
