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'He's explosive, dynamic... has X-factor' - the man of few words who could be Wales' next scrumhalf star - Tomos Williams

By Owain Jones
(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Let’s get a few facts out of the way first when it comes to Tomos Williams. When he next pulls on the red jersey he will become Treorchy’s most capped player, overtaking Andrew Bishop, on 17 caps. He represented Wales at basketball at under-16s level.

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From a family of gifted sportsmen, the biggest influence on his rugby career, bar none, has been Steve, his dad. He has a cockapoo named Rollo and the two are regularly found pounding the streets of Treorchy.

Like pretty much every rugby player, his spare time is spent going for a coffee with the boys. Another fact you may not know is he is not overly fond of talking about himself. Verbal diarrhoea is not a problem. An economy with words is a gift – certainly with this journalist – that could see him aiming for the Brevity Olympics in 2020.

So, Act One. Could he elaborate on the following to RugbyPass. His comprehensive skillset? “Nothing is perfect in my game, and I don’t think it ever will be.” His biggest disappointment? “The World Cup semi-final. I don’t want the feeling of that loss again.”

Okay. How about describing what you try to achieve over 80 minutes? Putting the ball through hands, offloading, box-kicking, you know, what is your point of difference? “I don’t think too much. I just play what I see in front of me.”

(Continue reading below…)

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Does he get nervous before games? “Not really. That only happens if you’re not confident in yourself. If you don’t believe in yourself, no one will believe in you.”

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Right, then. What about your bombastic handling skills? “That’s my basketball background but it was never a viable option because there is only one winner in Wales and that’s rugby. I don’t practice anything particularly. It comes naturally, I suppose.”

How about opposition scrum-halves, do you admire anyone in the game? “I don’t want to talk about other nines. I want to be my own player.” And how about leaning on anyone in and around the camp. “Not really. Once you’re on the field, it’s up to you, no one else.”

You catch the drift. He’s not one for wasting words, running off at tangents, and filling the air with waffle. Responses are straight, to the point and curt. The problem for Williams is that his performances are meriting more and more words.

Exhibit one: Wales v Australia, Tokyo, 2019. With 76:29 on the clock, Matt Toomua hoofs the ball upfield. One of the smallest players on the pitch, Williams tracks the ball in the night sky, leaps balletically sideways a metre and pads the ball delicately back into play. It looks like it’s something he has practiced thousands of times before. He hasn’t.

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Exhibit two: Wales v Georgia, Toyota, 2019. Williams gathers the ball 40 metres out, points with his right hand towards the touchline as if to tell the Georgian defender where he is going but he steps off his right foot to evade left-wing Giorgi Kveseladze, bobs under full-back Soso Matiashvili like a super middleweight in his pomp, steps inside the burly Levan Chilachava before offloading with one hand into the outstretched palms of George North as two defenders commit. Five defenders taken out in 10 metres. A set play? Not on your nelly.

Exhibit three: Lyon v Cardiff Blues, November 2018. Ellis Jenkins intercepts from 60 metres and sees Williams screaming for the ball on his right. The scrum-half gathers the ball, steps outside, then inside, then out again to leave Lyon’s Rudi Wolf considering an early retirement before theatrically diving in the corner. It’s a finish any wing would be purring about.

Exhibit four: Cardiff Blues v Pau, December 2019. With Cardiff leading 12-10 and nearly half-an-hour gone, Williams shapes to pass but in the same movement, dinks the ball with the outside of his right boot over the heads of the Pau defence to a waiting Jarrod Evans to skip over for an easy score. Impudent doesn’t cover it.

We could go on. The rip and strip on Charles Ollivon to save Wales exiting the World Cup in the quarter-finals, the 55-metre disallowed solo try against Zebre which saw him feint, draw and dummy five defenders before diving in the corner. Williams is no run-of-the-mill nine.

Onto Act Two. Someone who is more loquacious on the subject of our erstwhile scrum-half than the man himself is Richie Rees, who works with him day-in, day-out. The former Wales scrum-half is now his backs coach at the Cardiff Blues.

Rees lets out a little chuckle when he discusses our cursory chat. “Tommy’s a good guy. He calls a spade a spade.”

Rees is well placed to analyse his gifts and unique skillsets he brings to the game? “The majority of things Tommy does is all down to instinct. He’s a natural ball player, through his multi-sport background and he doesn’t spend hours and hours on the training field religiously practicing his offloading.”

Tomos Williams tackling
Barbarians’ Curwin Bosch collects the ball last month against Wales’ Tomos Williams (Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)

Williams came through the system at Coleg Y Cymoedd and Rees remembers exactly where he was when he first laid eyes upon him. “He was playing up a year for the Wales under-20 and I was doing commentary for the BBC. After I got home, I said to my missus, ‘There’s this guy coming through who is going to be an exceptional rugby player’. That was Tomos.”

A lot of what Williams does is not scripted. Far from it, he plays on his wits, on impulse. “If you saw the try against Pau, where he chipped over the top to Jarrod Evans, that’s not something we practiced in the week. That’s the off-the-cuff. He does it simply because he has the ability.”

With such an instinctive game, Rees says there are drawbacks, but the positives outweigh the negatives. “Naturally errors happen with that sort of skillset. The majority of the time, if it’s a 60-40 gamble, you’re happy to go with it. There are two types of player. 

“Take Leigh Halfpenny. He’s 85 to 90 per cent across the board – he rarely ever makes an error. His standout would be his goal kicking but if you look at Tommy, he has real X-factor. He’s explosive, dynamic, gets his hands through the ball. He’s got points of difference that other players simply don’t have.”

As his career progresses – Williams turns 25 on New Year’s Day – Rees says it’s important not to coach the ability out of him. “Sometimes he gets frustrated. Say if we have a three-fix strike play, sometimes he’ll go on his own but it usually works out. If it’s repeated skill error, that is when it becomes an issue but the guy is a box of tricks. He will try every different thing going because he has that innate confidence to do it.”

Williams’ devil-may-care, gung-ho nature makes coaching him a challenge but Rees wouldn’t have it any other way. “You go into the week with general themes. You don’t overload them with more than two or three ideas and as long as they are sticking on the same path they are free to express themselves. 

“I did a session this week and we chatted afterwards about a speculative pass he had made. I had just watched it back on the laptop and because he shaped to pass out of the back, and then switched his body angle to pop a short ball out the front, the short runner wasn’t expecting it. I can’t blame him. For me as a coach, it’s just working with him and figuring out how we can make him better.”

With 16 caps in little over 18 months at national level, his career progression is being closely monitored in the highest echelons of Welsh rugby. Indeed, Rees has chewed the fat with Stephen Jones about how his development should look in 2020 and beyond. 

“I met Stephen last week and we both came to the easy conclusion that he is one of the two best scrum-halves in Wales – there’s no doubt about that. The next step is how can we get him to be the starting Welsh No9. 

“I know from personal experience, coming on with half an hour to go, is very different to managing and starting a game. You have to get consistency, and he knows that. I said to Steve, he is a regular starter at the Blues for the last 18 months but he is only going to get that experience with Wales by being put in that position.”

With Rhys Webb still ensconced in France indefinitely having turned 31 earlier this month, Williams could be a part of the Welsh set-up for the next seven or eight years and Rees feels there is yet room for growth. “For me, the exciting thing is that being around good players he has a couple of years where he’ll only get better.”

As for his communication around his contemporaries, Rees says he understands the game intimately. “Whatever persona he gives off, he is straight as an arrow around his delivery in a team environment. For instance, it really helps Jarrod that No 9 can see the same tactical plays. 

“Personally I like leaning on him in meetings because he gets a feel for the group. Tomos always gives you a straight answer. Sometimes I’ll prep him, so rather than me doing all the talking, he’ll fire away to the rest of the backs, no problem.”

Where Rees feels Williams’ game has come on most is in his basics, something which pleases him. “Over the last year and a half especially, there’s been a big improvement from him in the game’s fundamentals. His kicking and passing have skyrocketed from say four years ago. That’s down to hard work.”

The final piece of his make-up is Williams’ pugilistic attitude and ability to front up to players. “What sets him apart from other No9s is the edge he brings to his game. He’s like Gareth (Davies) in that regard. It helps from a forwards perspective because he doesn’t mind driving them around the park, patrolling the fringes and challenging those edge defenders. 

“If you watch how he is utilised by us and Wales defensively, it’s because defence coaches are prepared to put him in the front line. He’s not the biggest bloke, say 5ft 10 and 13st, but he’s fearless. Take last year at the Arms Park, Gareth Davies looked to take a quick tap penalty and Tomos lined him up. The collision between the two was seismic. He’s so dynamic that he can get away with it.”

Davies isn’t the only scrum-half Williams will be going toe-to-toe with in the next few weeks as the Six Nations loom. First up will be Aled Davies in the game against the Ospreys this weekend and it will then be the fast-improving Rhodri Williams on Boxing Day. 

Williams’ only focus will be on emerging victorious. The epitome of a player doing his talking on the pitch, this jack-in-the-box No9 will doubtless be befuddling defences, outfoxing journalists and thrilling Welsh crowds for years to come.

There’s no doubting Tomos, a star in the making.

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Jon 2 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

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j
john 5 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

But here in Australia we were told Penney was another gun kiwi coach, for the Tahs…….and yet again it turned out the kiwi coach was completely useless. Another con job on Australian rugby. As was Robbie Deans, as was Dave Rennie. Both coaches dumped from NZ and promoted to Australia as our saviour. And the Tahs lap them up knowing they are second rate and knowing that under pressure when their short comings are exposed in Australia as well, that they will fall in below the largest most powerful province and choose second rate Tah players to save their jobs. As they do and exactly as Joe Schmidt will do. Gauranteed. Schmidt was dumped by NZ too. That’s why he went overseas. That why kiwi coaches take jobs in Australia, to try and prove they are not as bad as NZ thought they were. Then when they get found out they try and ingratiate themselves to NZ again by dragging Australian teams down with ridiculous selections and game plans. NZ rugby’s biggest problem is that it can’t yet transition from MCaw Cheatism. They just don’t know how to try and win on your merits. It is still always a contest to see how much cheating you can get away with. Without a cheating genius like McCaw, they are struggling. This I think is why my wise old mate in NZ thinks Robertson will struggle. The Crusaders are the nursery of McCaw Cheatism. Sean Fitzpatrick was probably the father of it. Robertson doesn’t know anything else but other countries have worked it out.

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Adrian 7 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

Thanks Nick The loss of players to OS, injury and retirement is certainly not helping the Crusaders. Ditto the coach. IMO Penny is there to hold the fort and cop the flak until new players and a new coach come through,…and that's understood and accepted by Penny and the Crusaders hierarchy. I think though that what is happening with the Crusaders is an indicator of what is happening with the other NZ SRP teams…..and the other SRP teams for that matter. Not enough money. The money has come via the SR competition and it’s not there anymore. It's in France, Japan and England. Unless or until something is done to make SR more SELLABLE to the NZ/Australia Rugby market AND the world rugby market the $s to keep both the very best players and the next rung down won't be there. They will play away from NZ more and more. I think though that NZ will continue to produce the players and the coaches of sufficient strength for NZ to have the capacity to stay at the top. Whether they do stay at the top as an international team will depend upon whether the money flowing to SRP is somehow restored, or NZ teams play in the Japan comp, or NZ opts to pick from anywhere. As a follower of many sports I’d have to say that the organisation and promotion of Super Rugby has been for the last 20 years closest to the worst I’ve ever seen. This hasn't necessarily been caused by NZ, but it’s happened. Perhaps it can be fixed, perhaps not. The Crusaders are I think a symptom of this, not the cause

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Trevor 10 hours ago
Will forgotten Wallabies fit the Joe Schmidt model?

Thanks Brett.. At last a positive article on the potential of Wallaby candidates, great to read. Schmidt’s record as an international rugby coach speaks for itself, I’m somewhat confident he will turn the Wallaby’s fortunes around …. on the field. It will be up to others to steady the ship off the paddock. But is there a flaw in my optimism? We have known all along that Australia has the players to be very competitive with their international rivals. We know that because everyone keeps telling us. So why the poor results? A question that requires a definitive answer before the turn around can occur. Joe Schmidt signed on for 2 years, time to encompass the Lions tour of 2025. By all accounts he puts family first and that’s fair enough, but I would wager that his 2 year contract will be extended if the next 18 months or so shows the statement “Australia has the players” proves to be correct. The new coach does not have a lot of time to meld together an outfit that will be competitive in the Rugby Championship - it will be interesting to see what happens. It will be interesting to see what happens with Giteau law, the new Wallaby coach has already verbalised that he would to prefer to select from those who play their rugby in Australia. His first test in charge is in July just over 3 months away .. not a long time. I for one wish him well .. heaven knows Australia needs some positive vibes.

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