FEATURE How 'gazelle' Nick Frost thawed the hearts of Wallaby fans at Suncorp

Reputations don’t count for much, or are all too easily forgotten in the fast-moving age of professional sport. Football managers in the English Premier League must always have a bag packed somewhere in the back office, awaiting a swift and unexpected departure.

Claudio Ranieri was celebrated after winning the league with Midland outliers Leicester City in 2015-16, on a total squad budget of only £58.2m. He was revered as a ‘Moneyball’ miracle-worker. Wind the clock on to West London only a couple of years later, and the Fulham fans were chanting ‘You don’t know what you’re doing’. The Italian ‘Tinker-man’ was sacked after only 106 days in charge at Craven Cottage.

Netherlands 112-cap legend Frank De Boer fared even worse, lasting only four games at Crystal Palace before receiving the boot. The Selhurst Park club did not score a single goal during the Flying Dutchman’s tenure. So much for ‘total football’ in the era of sporting amnesia.

Ever since he appeared for Hornsby Juniors Under-8s, Nick Frost has been earmarked for the international fast-track. As a teenager ‘he began collecting medals like no-one’s business’ in a wide variety of athletic disciplines. He was a star pentathlete who could compete in sprints, hurdles, jumps and throwing events with equal facility. He achieved state-level recognition in both basketball and rugby for New South Wales, before taking the unprecedented step – for an Aussie – of accepting an offer to join the Crusaders academy.

At the end of his stint in New Zealand, then-head coach of the Wallaby U20s, Jason Gilmore hustled him back into his squad post-haste. Despite not having participated in any of the preparatory camps, he went straight to the Junior World Cup later the same year.

As Gilmore commented prophetically:

“Nick played [for] Australian Schoolboys and has come through the pathway and then went over to New Zealand for 12 months. The Brumbies have just re-signed him so he’s become available for selection for us. That was a tough decision, because we’ve got a pretty settled squad.

“We just feel Nick will value-add to our set-piece. He is a big athletic kid, so we’re expecting good things from him. Last year proved with ‘Hocko’ [Harry Hockings] and ‘Blythey’ [Angus Blyth], when you’ve got two locks over two metres tall, at kick-off and at lineout it’s really crucial.”

Frost responded by outpacing the Irish backline, and scoring the most spectacular individual try of the tournament en route to the final.

The second-row started his first senior match for the Wallabies only three years later in the 2022 July series against Eddie Jones’ England. He hardly paused to look back for the remainder of the year, starting four of Australia’s five matches on the end-of-year tour and finishing the season as Rugby Australia’s rookie of the year. CEO Andy Marinos commented on the award:

“It was certainly no surprise to see him flourish in that environment, and become such an important player for the national team.

“He is a rare talent with great mobility and athleticism, and a fantastic attitude to hard work and improvement. Nick goes about his business with minimal fuss and a huge emphasis on the team.

“I expect he will be a crucial part of the Wallabies programme for many years to come.”

I wrote a piece at the time, fleshing out those gilt-edged compliments with some in-depth statistical detail:

“Frost emerged from the debris of the tour leading almost every important category for a tight forward:

• First in minutes played (320), and the only tight forward to play every minute of every match he started.

• First in penalties given up, with one solitary penalty conceded over four matches.
• First in lineout takes (23) and steals (2), while securing 50% of Australia’s own throw.
• First in the number of ruck attendances as one of the first three cleanout supports – 23 more than the next man.
• First in ball-carries made (29) and tackles completed (42).

It was a hugely impressive effort from the 23-year-old greenhorn in his first season of international rugby.”

After that shower of praise, what could possibly go wrong? The setbacks started after a 2023 World Cup in which Frost emerged scarred – tainted by association with Jones’ ill-fated expedition. For many of the Australian players who participated in that shipwreck, the smell of disaster has been hard to shake off.

In Super Rugby Pacific, Frost found himself dropping down the Brumbies pecking order, behind one of the second rows left twiddling his thumbs at home by Jones, Darcy Swain. Swain started 12 of 14 games at lock with Frost only running on in eight. When it counted, in the knockout stages against Kiwi opposition, Swain was trusted to start and Frost was relegated to bench duty.

The fast-track still seemed to be a thing of the past at the beginning of the July international window, with the wheels spinning and a smoking handbrake applied by Joe Schmidt’s initial selections in the two-Test series against Wales. The Rebels’ Lukhan Salakaia-Loto and Jeremy Williams of the Force were preferred in both matches and Frost only got the call in the third game versus Georgia. His partner was the man name-checked by Jason Gilmore five years previously, as another of that select band of two-metre-plus second rows, Angus Blyth.

With two men of 6ft 8ins or more in the boiler house of their scrum, the Wallaby tight five went to work and Frost showed Schmidt exactly what he had been missing. The young giant began with nine lineout wins [eight own-ball takes and one steal], more than twice the number won by the next Wallaby, and as many as the total managed by the visitors’ lineout.

These were not balls scraped back any old fashion, they were for the most part prime-quality, blue-riband deliveries from the tail.

When you get this quality of delivery, you can work all your moves off the tail of the line and commit the opposition inside backs early. Progress all the way up to the Georgian 5m line is more or less painless in both clips.

If the defence begins to over-read those dummy moves around the end of the line, you can hold the ball in and drive instead.

The big Brumby was just as effective at making the back of the lineout a no-go area on defence.

A 6ft 9ins athlete of Frost’s ability and range at the tail can pull rabbits out of the hat, making it appear as if a Georgian throw was delivered by the green-and-gold.

The lineout provided the platform for a perfect illustration of Frost’s value as a fourth back-row forward in support of a long break downfield.

The long-striding second row wins more ball at the back, then comfortably out-paces all the other Australian tight forwards to become the first support for Fraser McReight on the Georgian 5m line. That kind of connective tissue will be vital for Schmidt as he evolves the Wallaby attack in future. It was no accident.

The soft hands at the end of that clip were also in evidence in pod-play, where Frost had the ball more than any other Wallaby forward, with 28 carries divided into 17 runs and 11 passes.

If there is a criticism of Frost, it has probably been physicality at the contact zone, the coaching area which happens to be a specialism of ex-Brumbies man ‘Lord’ Laurie Fisher. The Lord had a broad smile on his face in the coaching booth at the end of the game, and it might just have had something to do with Frost’s aggression in the tackle and post-tackle.

In the first instance a dominant hit knocks the first cleanout support sideways and creates the momentum finished by a McReight pilfer penalty on the following play. In the second, a prolonged second effort after the tackle is made yields the result Fisher would have wanted, another penalty for collapsing the breakdown contest.

Frost has been an accelerated talent ever since his days as a schoolboy, the only question was whether his outstanding innate ability would be applied to rugby, athletics or Aussie Rules. There have been more setbacks in his professional career than ever before in 2024, but the Georgia performance demonstrated the young man is in no mood to be deterred.

If the Wallabies can unite one point-of-difference second row with another in Will Skelton, they will have more than enough power, size and athleticism to worry even the world champions. Frost runs, tackles and leaps like a gazelle in the line. Skelton stops mauls, powers scrums and carries like a bulldozer. It is a combination as natural as bangers and mash.