A piece on the increasing size of Irish rugby teams using data from selected sides named to face England in the Six Nations from 1980 to 2014.

Published in the print edition of the Irish Times on Saturday, February 8th 2015.

Big blokes, these rugby men. Irish sides are not renowned as behemoths of the rugby world but Joe Schmidt’s side of today still dwarfs those of 30 years ago. Watching tape of matches even from the early 1990s, never mind the ’80s or beforehand, and the slenderness of those on the field is quite clear compared to the muscled specimens that will be on show over the coming Six Nations weekends. Rugby players are big. And they’re getting bigger.

There have been exceptions, of course. Ireland’s 2004 Triple Crown winners featured a halfback pairing of Ronan O’Gara and Peter Stringer who weighed the same as Paul Dean and Michael Bradley in 1985.

But on the whole the trend is clear.

Read more here: http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/international/how-big-has-become-beautiful-in-modern-rugby…