Part two of rucked.com's exclusive interview with Wales and Ospreys’ star Shane Williams…
This season has been pretty good for you…
I’d like to think I’ve played consistently well for years and years, and this year I’ve probably been reaching the potential I set for myself. You set standards but sometimes you don’t reach them because of a loss of form, injuries etc, but the last couple of years I’ve been fit and well – it helps when things go well off the field. I’ve got a child now that keeps me on my toes, it’s made me realise there are more important things that rugby. You have to look after your family first and rugby second. With the rugby, whether it’s training or a game, I’ve just knuckled down as a player – I’ve matured.
On and off the field?
Everyone makes mistakes, and I’m far from the perfect rugby player or far from perfect person. I’ve made mistakes on the field and off the field, but learn from that – it’s just a process of growing up. I know that there’s nothing perfect about the way I play, I’ve always got the mentality that I can improve.
You reached the last eight in Europe, not enough?
It wasn’t enough at all, we’ve got high expectations in the Magners League, EDF and Heineken Cup, so it was a big disappointment for us. We’re far better than what we were on the day [against Saracens], the performance was nowhere nears as good as the rest of the season – we let ourselves down, it was really disappointing. We worked so hard to get that far in the Heineken Cup that we deserved more. We didn’t do that well in the Magners League either and although we worked hard in to win the EDF Energy Cup.
Did winning the EDF ease the pain a bit?
I think it does, of course it does make up because after the disappointment of the Heineken Cup we did something, it was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It meant all our hard work wasn’t for nothing, we can’t make up for it completely – we did let ourselves down in Europe and we played poorly in the Magners League. Not winning an away game all season isn’t good enough for the squad we’ve got.
How do you change things?
We’ve got analyse what went wrong, see if mentality we weren’t right on the day [of the Saracens’ game], work on things that we felt we need to work on. We are a good side, we’re not perfect and we’ll continue to work on on things so that we can be a team that’s recognised in Europe. We’re not there yet but I’m sure we will be.
The Six Nations, how did that happen?
I think the first game was the most important game of tournament. If we’d lost that it would have been very different. What was great for us was that we never gave up, we were trailing by a number of points in the first half and yet we still picked ourselves up, came back in the second half, performed well and deserved to win. From then on we started to believe – if we could come back against England, then we could beat the remaining sides in the Six Nations.
What about the impact of Edwards and Gatland?
It’s been incredible considering the little time we’ve had together – what they’ve done is a testament to them. It’s not all down to coaches though, the players had a little bit to say too. When Warren, Shaun and Rob [Howley] came in they had a look at the way Wales had played in the past and told us what to work on and what to continue doing. We worked very hard in training sessions – they were very intense and left very little margin for the error. And all that effort in the gym and on the training field ended up paying off on the field.
Is there a fear this is a false dawn?
We don’t want to go back to doing well and then giving a couple of years mediocre before winning again three or four years down the line. We want to set our stall out and be one of the best teams in the world consistently – we can’t be a good side in one campaign then a very poor side in the next.
South Africa next up?
It’s a massive ask, not many teams in the world go to the southern hemisphere and beat one of those sides on their own doorstep – and South Africa are world champions as well.
What are the targets?
What we want to get out of this tour is the knowledge that we can compete with the best in the world. As I said it’s a massive ask but we’re more than capable of doing that and we’ll certainly go down there and play our hearts out.
Few players out though…
Yeah but we’re very lucky in Wales because we’ve got a strength in depth that we’ve lacked in the past. We’ve lost players in key areas like Dwayne [Peel], Lee [Byrne], Gavin [Henson], Martyn [Williams] which is a bit of a hindrance but guys have come in and trained and put there hands up to take these positions. It’s all quite exciting…
What else have you been up to?
Pretty much just organising my testimonial year, it’s been a busy year off the field.
Testimonial year – you’re getting old then…
Yeah, it’s normally at the end of your career – I’d like to think I’ve got a couple of years left. The game [against Justin Marshall’s select XV a fortnight ago] made me feel very privileged, not many people get to organise a game like. It’s been such an incredible year for me, hopefully it will continue.
Images courtesy of Terry Morris's Cool Cymru Collection.