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HE MAY HAVE only retired for good last month, but Shane Williams already feels like a throwback to a different age in rugby union.
Resting back on a chair in a Dublin boardroom, still sporting that beard, he finishes typing an email on his phone while seats are taken up around him. For one newspaper journalist, he’s blended in to the crowd, ‘where’s Shane going to sit?’
Rugby fans who check in to their local pub on the Guinness Plus app this Saturday 14th March as Ireland take on Wales will be in with the opportunity of winning a VIP trip to Ireland’s final RBS Six Nations game against Scotland next weekend. Source: Billy Stickland/INPHO
Shane’s sitting comfortably, ready to chat for the best part of an hour.
Williams’ story just doesn’t seem credible the way modern rugby is set up. Not quite a coal-miner’s son, his family tradition was none-the-less steeped in black dust. Until he was recruited by Neath at 19, his sporting time in the Amman Valley (south-west of the Brecon Beacons) was divided between playing scrum-half for Amman United, the left side of Cwmamman United’s attack and working part-time.
“I never took rugby seriously in school. I was told I was too small which, up to my international career, was the story of my life. Played on the B team in school, played a lot of soccer, then played a season for Amman United RFC…
“…I went on to train with Neath from there and them to play for Wales within two years.”
Maybe it could happen now. Coaches and talent-finding programmes would love to think that the individual skills would still shine through: that a burst of pace, an eye for a gap, an even greater eye for the try-line would be valued as highly as ever. But the analytics in modern rugby would be screaming in the other side of their ears: ‘He’s 5′ 7″, under 12 stone. He won’t hack it’.
“I didn’t enjoy the physicality to be honest with you. It makes it difficult for you when you are conceding 20 or 30 kgs to your opponents. Especially in the contact area when you’re trying to tackle these players, or else getting tackled yourself.
Source: PA Archive/Press Association Images
“I certainly hope, and the neutrals will hope, that the smaller player can continue to survive in the game. I watched Craig Gilroy play for Ulster against the Dragons and he did very well for a player who’s not the biggest. He’s quite evasive and quick on his feet.
