No the 80 times capped, double Lions tour starter, 210 times capped Leinster player is not the most underrated in the world.FLIP wrote:Is Heaslip the words most underrated number 8? Repeatedly he gets left at the bottom of the lists of the best number 8s, behind the latest spoofer of the day (Andy Powell was the flavour 8 years ago, where is he now?) and yet he has won more than any of his contenders (bar Read) at both domestic, international, and Lions level. He doesn't seem all that bothered by what other people think of him, but is this perception that he isn't as good as he actually is behind the sort of nonsense that this topic is highlighting?
Any Powell's heyday was in 2009 - Heaslip was picked ahead of him on that Lions tour so no underestimating there.
I do think that he hasn't turned out to be the player that a lot thought he would (think France 2009) - a lot of the reason for this is the other players he has played alongside - SOB came into the team and was aways going to carry more than Heaslip for example and his role has changed a lot over the years.
If you lok at the other top end internationals - Parisse, Vunipola, Picamoles, Faletau, Read - I don't think he has the footballing skills at the level of Parisse or Read at his pomp, and he definitely doesn't have the carrying of Vunipola or Picamloes (or Vermuelen for example) but he has a far more rounded skillset than most of them -> his biggest assets are his durability and workrate - they aren't exactly the kind of attributes that people notice. He is an incredibly valuable kind of player to hgave and the fact that we have had backrowers slotting in the last couple of years seamlessly probably has a lot to do with him (TOD, Murphy, Ruddock, Henry, POM, SOB, Stander, Henderson have all been pretty seamless in the backrow in the last couple of years)
I think he reacted to Stander being in the team at the weekend - great to see - Heaslip playing like that all the time would be fantastic
So no - not underrated - possibly underappreciated, but a key cog for us. There are other 8's I would have ahead of him but that's no evidence of underrating,
