Hampshire v Williams : Mon Nov 12, 2018 4:24 am
First of all I’m no Hampshire groupie, the lad still has a lot to prove and is still some way off the finished article as a HB.That said it tells you all you need to know about the British game and it’s three sad obsessions - over reliance on imported pivot players - not playing players in position - an absurd obsession with a players club shirt at international level.
It baffles me how Williams gets selected at that level it really does? If he wore almost any other shirt he would not get a sniff! He’s been barely adequate at club level in recent years.
I don’t think Hampshire has helped himself tbh but of the two imho he has far more of a game than Williams.
Yet he’s never really been given a run at 7 not even at Leigh due partly with our third obsession which is to play any young British HB at either FB or hooker.
This is nearly always done to accommodate an Aussie and quite often a second rate one. Even Miller who I like is I get the feeling bulletproof these days and no matter how well Hampshire or even Reynolds do Milky will be first on the team sheet - not Millers fault by the way.
We are far from the worst for this as it happens in every club in the land. Tomkins is a far better HB than Williams and Most of Wigan’s imports yet he’s only being used as a HB now after years of being wasted at FB - years he could have spent perfecting his game. Much to my surprise he’s been great this test series but it’s too little too late as his top years are gone.
Now the new obsession is Hastings! Seriously is that how low we have gone. Great player but he’s not British end of.
Put simply we need to start persisting with British HB’s at every club. Bring back A teams and let them learn until they are ready 22-24 year old is an ideal stage to step up to first choice HB.
We won’t beat the Aussies until we match them in brain as well as brawn and that won’t happen until we stop looking for quick fixes and develop players properly.
So back to my original point - Hampshire v Williams. Hampshire needs to buckle down now and stop listening to anyone except his Coach and maybe one day he’ll wear the England 6 or 7. Williams needs to be ignored until he learns how to truly play the game.
Both players have clearly been mismanaged through the years but it strikes me as odd that the clearly more talented of the two is still a million miles from international level. Whilst the other who is equally as far off gets picked without question. And finally both will spend most of their club career as second fiddle to Antipodeans of dubious quality and this will be mirrored throughout SL.
Very very sad situation that was so glaringly exposed today - if that had been Australia it would have been a series white wash to them and a third test drubbing of 50 points plus.
