The benefit of competition

[Which Tyler]

With his Lions selection, I'm seeing a lot of praise (rightfully) for Will Stuart - and how much he's improved over the last 2 years - with a lot of mentions that his uptick in form coincided with Du Toit arriving at Bath, pushing him in training and on the pitch.
But I feel that it's worth noting how much Du Toit has improved since joining Bath, being pushed by Stuart in training and on the pitch.

Whilst I'm at it, I want to push back a little against BT's narrative around Du Toit, the whole "try scoring machine" "best prop in the world" "must be on a marquee salary" etc

We all know about Stuart, and have all seen him improvement, even as he faces less competition at international level, with Cole finally aging out, and Sinckler buggering about then buggering off.

TdT came to Bath after failing to make the Springbok's RWC squad; and has since risen up to what? 3rd choice for the Boks? Being trusted against the scrummaging might of Wales, Scotland and Portugal in "friendlies", and only against Argentina or Australia when away from home when it matters (QN).
When he signed for Bath, he had 3 starts and 9 bench appearances for the Boks, at the age of 28. Scoring 12 tries across 130+ appearances.

Since signing for Bath, he's made another 6 starts and 2 bench appearances for the Boks (who've played 30-odd tests), and scored 21 tries across 59 matches.

He's absolutely come into his own since coming to Bath. But people think "best prop in the world huh? must be on marquee salary - wonder how they fit that into the cap?" rather than thinking "starting to get on a bit, never made much of an impression, fringe international" when he signed his contract.

Both have come on leaps and bounds at Bath - which is testament to both the coaching AND the value of competing for your place, pushing up standards.
I think you can see the same in England's current backrow, and the EJ era second row.

I'm not sure it works so well for the more fragile egos in the backs, where players seem to need a longer run and greater faith shown in them - but it's going to be a more individual psychology thing (one where I suspect that the more confrontational nature of forwards play, and consequent confrontational attitude pays off)