Lions pick Watson sweetly hits back at 'badmouthing' Stephen Jones
Lions tour back-rower Hamish Watson has hit back at last April’s newspaper criticism by Sunday Times rugby correspondent Stephen Jones who claimed that the Six Nations player of the tournament was too small to play for Warren Gatland’s team. The soon-to-be 30-year-old flanker had blazed a championship trail with the much-improved Scotland, helping them to much-admired away wins versus England and France.
Those performances generated a huge public momentum for Watson to get chosen to tour South Africa but one journalist attempted to shoot down the Scottish player’s credentials by claiming: “Lightweight Hamish Watson is no match for the Springboks. The Scotland flanker may be the best in the Six Nations but he shouldn’t be on the Lions tour.”
As it turned out, Watson was picked to tour by Gatland and he went on to feature in the first Test as a second-half replacement when the Lions defeated the Springboks in Cape Town. That selection was very much one in the eye of the critics who reckoned that the Scotland forward was too small for that type of an international stage.
The thing is, though, Watson has now admitted he never knew who Jones was until the controversy erupted in the wake of last April’s “he’s too small to tour” article, quipping that he initially thought it was ex-Wales out-half Stephen Jones who had taken a pop at his size and not a seasoned journalist who has long been on the rugby media circuit.
Watson was appearing on the first episode of the new RugbyPass Offload season in the company of Ryan Wilson and Max Lahiff when the criticism from Jones was read out to him, prompting his amusing reaction about how he hadn’t a clue who the journalist in question was.
RugbyPass Offload Season 2 is here ?
Our rugby podcast is back with Max Lahiff, Ryan Wilson & Marc Edwards leading our panel ?
We're joined by @hamishwatson7 who lifts the lid on pre-season in rugby & he tells us Lions stories!
?? – https://t.co/EZwo1a2kRJ pic.twitter.com/S3tSByWrfp
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) September 15, 2021
“When I saw a lot of stuff coming through on my social media I had no idea who Stephen Jones is,” said Watson on the show less than six weeks after the Lions tour ended in a 2-1 Test series defeat to the Springboks. “I thought it was the old Wales 10 badmouthing me and I thought that was just weird from another rugby player. I don’t really care about the opinion, to be honest. He has done his job because he is a journalist and it is what it is blown into.
“Anyone who has played me on the field, without being an arse, anyone who knows me, sees the stuff in the gym and all that sort, people know it [the article] is a load of rubbish. It’s just funny how stuff like that has suddenly spiralled into stuff like this and people having debates on podcasts. That is him well played I guess but do I care about his opinion? Not really.”
Watson was similarly unruffled by the infamous post-first Test video rant by Rassie Erasmus, the South African director of rugby, who is now facing a World Rugby misconduct charge for his criticism of the match officials. “I didn’t actually watch it, I saw little snippets,” continued the Lions forward.
“I’m sure the coaching staff watched it. The reaction in camp was just to let him get on with his business, he is focusing on the wrong thing. For me personally, I found it quite funny all the stuff he was saying. The fact of the matter is anyone can do what he did and go through 80 minutes of rugby and pick out probably 100 penalties that didn’t get seen.
“Whether people like it or not, that is rugby. There are going to be so many little penalties, so many yellow cards, even red cards that people miss and that is the game. What he did I suppose any coach could do after a game and any coach could vent like that after a game. But I didn’t hold anything against him. I thought it was quite comical, to be honest.”
- Listen to the whole RugbyPass Offload episode on iTunes (click here) and Spotify (click here)
"I was having a drink of Red Bull thinking he [Biggar] will be fine. Then he went back down again and I was like, ‘He is going to come off so I better stand up and shake a leg a little bit’."
– Finn Russell was in sparkling Lions form on @TheRugbyPod https://t.co/2g4uIvwdhS
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) September 14, 2021
Comments on RugbyPass
We’re building a bridge but can't agree where the river is.
2 Go to commentsfirst no arms shoulder or helmet tackle into his rib cage is going to be so very painful even to watch. go back to RU mate.
1 Go to commentsBulls by 5. Plus another 50.
3 Go to commentsJohan Goosen avatar. Cute. Surely someone at RP knows how to do a google image search?
3 Go to commentsCan’t these games play a little earlier? Asking for a friend.
3 Go to commentsIt’s impressive that we can see huge stadiums with attendance in the 40 000 to 50 000 region. It shows how popular this competition is becoming. What is even more impressive is the massive growth in broadcast viewership. The URC is one of the two best leagues in the World, the other being the Top14.
7 Go to commentsChristie is not Sottish, like the majority of the Scotland team.
2 Go to commentsHold the phone, decline over-rated. Is it a one game, dead cat bounce or the real thing? Has the Penney dropped? Stay tuned.
45 Go to commentsTotally deserved win for the Crusaders Far smarter than the Chiefs who seem to be avoiding the basics when it matters Hotham showed them what was missing and Hannah seems a real find - a tad light but that can be fixed over time
8 Go to commentsGreat insight into the performance culture with Sarries and I predict Christie will be a fixture in the Scotland team now for some time to come. However, he is slightly missing his own point around Scotland “being soft” when he cites physicality examples in defence of that slight. The issue is much closer to the example he referenced around feeling off before a game but being told “it doesn’t matter, you can still play well” by Farrell. Until Scotland can get their psyche in that square, they will carry on folding under extreme pressure…
2 Go to comments> We are having to adapt, evolve and innovate more than when we were in Super Rugby where there was only really one style that everybody had to play to gain the most success. Have = able to? Interesting what that one style might be? I thought SA sides still had bad tours now, or at least bad schedule, months away? Those extra few hours flights have to be a killer though, no surprise to see their sides doing so badly at the start of the season each year. I wouldn’t enjoy that unfairness as a supporter.
7 Go to commentsThe problem for NZ, and Aus, is they ripped up the SR model and lost a massive chunk of revenue that hasn’t been replaced. Don’t forget SA clubs went North because they were left with no choice, Argy unceremoniously binned and Japan cast adrift. Now SR wasn’t perfect, far from it, but they’ve jumped into something without an effective plan, so far, to replace what they’ve lost. The biggest revenue potential now lies in Japan but it won’t be easy or quick to unlock, they are incredibly insular in culture as a nation. In the meantime, there is a serious time bomb sitting under SH rugby and if it happens then the current financial challenges will look like a picnic. IF the Boks follow their provincial teams and head north then it’s revenue meltdown. Not guaranteed to happen but the status quo is a very odd hybrid, with the Boks pointing one way and the clubs pointing the other way. And for as long as that remains then the threat is real.
45 Go to commentsI think Etene has had some good tuition, likely while at the Warriors to be a professional that helped his rugby jump, but he was certainly thrown in the deep end way too early. Should have arguably 20 less SR caps, and therefor a way better record that he does at his age, but his development would have been fast tracked by the need to satiate his signing away from league. Again, credit to him and others that he has done it so well. Easy to fall over under that pressure in the big leagues like that but he kept at it when I myself wasn’t sure he was good enough.
1 Go to commentsAwesome story. I wonder what a bigger American (SA) scene might have mean for Brex.
1 Go to comments“Johnny McNicholl and the Crusaders” save a Penney. Who has been in camp this week and showed them how to play?
8 Go to commentsSo, reports of the Crusaders’ demise / terminal decline are perhaps just - slightly - premature/exaggerated…? 🤔 Will we see a deep-dive into that by the estimable Rugbypass scribes, and maybe one or two mea culpas? Thought not.
8 Go to comments1. The Chiefs are rudderless without DMac, which enhances his AB chances 2. Chiefs pack are powderpuffs. The hard men arent there anymore 3. They had their golden title chance last yr and wont threaten this yr. Gone in second round of playoffs.
8 Go to commentsHonestly, why did you have to publish such a foolish article the day they play us? 😂
45 Go to comments> They are not standalone entities. They are linked to an amateur association which holds the FFR licence that allows the professional side to compete in the league. That’s a great rule. This looks like the chicken or egg professional scenario. How long is it going to be before the club can break even (if that is even a thing in French rugby)? If the locals aren’t into well it would be good to se them drop to amateur level (is it that far?). Hope they can reset from this level and be more practical, there will be a time when they can rebuild (if France has there setup right).
1 Go to commentsWhat about changing the ball? To something heavier and more pointed that bounces unpredictably. Not this almost round football used these days.
35 Go to comments