HE REPLACED the injured Welsh centre Jamie Roberts at half-time at Twickenham in February of this year and scored a solo try from the half-way line, having ripped the ball from England forward Courtney Lawes. Scott Williams will be thinking more of the same at Parc Y Scarlets on Saturday.
The Llanelli Scarlets centre grew up watching Brian O’Driscoll and this weekend faces him. The years have allowed the 21-year-old grow from admirer to robust opponent. O’Driscoll continues to carry respect and freight as a player but these days his combo act with Gordon D’Arcy has to prove itself every week.
“He’s got so much respect and does his talking on the field, doesn’t he,” says Williams. “He’s a phenomenal player and I’m looking forward to be able to play against him. I haven’t played that long against him, but yeah he’s definitely one of the best centres. He’s got a bit of everything really. He gets gain line. Every centre I think would want to be a bit like him.”
There is also fearlessness about Williams. In his admiration there is also conspiracy. It was Scarlets who holed Leinster in the first match of this year’s Pro 12 and from that outing they know how it can be done. Williams was part of the attack that ran in one of the five tries, Andy Fenby and George North grabbing two each.
For that match Ian Madigan was Leinster’s outhalf, Noel Reid inside centre and Brendan Macken outside him. It won’t be that line-up on Saturday. But no matter teams take their credits from 45-20 scores regardless of who the coach puts out.
Williams can go into their second pool match low on Clermont’s demolition of them last week or encouraged what they did to a shadow Leinster side in early September. His pick is September but he’s not leaning on it too heavily. “Yeah maybe a little (encouraged) but everyone has their on and off days,” he says of the earlier win. “I think any one can beat any one so you can’t take a backwards step thinking because you got one over on them you can do it every time. You’re trying to get two over on them.
“If we start anything like we started the game at the weekend (v Clermont) we will be in with a shout,” adds Williams. “We’ve just got to maybe cut the little errors out, try and keep intensity up for as long as we can. We have to learn how to put teams to bed.”
Close your eyes and that could be Leinster’s tune, or Rob Penney’s in Munster. Get egg, put in boiling water, wait three minutes. If only it was so simple to win a Heineken Cup match. But where there is momentum from the previous win for Scarlets, there is also the revenge gene in Leinster hoping to express itself.
“They will be looking to get one back,” says Williams. “We put as much points on them as Clermont put on us at the weekend. So we’ll be both in same situation. We will want to be putting things right from last week they’ll be wanting to put things right from the start of the season. They’ll be bringing a different team down and I think if we win we’re definitely still in the battle (for Heineken Cup).”
Twice beaten by Munster last year, Scarlets are desperate to move on from being a team with the potential to contend to a side that wins something tangible. From that point of view Leinster could be an important starting point as two defeats from two would put the Welsh side in a poor position to profit in Europe.
“Hopefully we will have learned from Munster last year and can turn narrow losses into narrow wins,” says Williams. “Everyone has been talking about us for the last couple of seasons, a young team developing, whatever. I think we’ve gone past that and we definitely have to start to win some silverware and put a mark down. We win a couple of good games and then we tend let a few slip away from us. This is our season now to try and step up.”
The European Champions are a good place to start.
