Exceeding expectations with every cheeky sidestep, Shane Williams defied critics to become one of rugby union’s most celebrated and influential players
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Those in England will remember the 2003 Rugby World Cup for Jonny Wilkinson’s drop goal, which secured victory in the final against hosts Australia. But across the Severn Bridge a more humble memory holds sway.
Wales coach Steve Hansen rested several key players in the final pool game against his native New Zealand. Hansen was a staunch pragmatist. Wales could not beat the All Blacks. Better to focus on the upcoming quarter-final against England. But back home the press and public were incensed. Hansen’s decision was a clear message to his first team: you are not good enough to beat New Zealand. Those selected were lambs to the slaughter.
But after 45 minutes Wales led the tournament favourites 34-28. The catalyst for Wales’s incisive performance was Shane Williams, their third-choice scrum-half selected on the wing, who Hansen believed was too small for international rugby. New Zealand rallied in the final stages to win 53-37. But Williams did enough to gain selection against England and star in another valiant defeat.
Williams has been Wales’s inspiration on many occasions since: slicing through the Irish defence to seal the Triple Crown in Dublin; twisting one way then the other to leave four South Africans on the floor at Loftus Versfeld; starting and finishing a sweeping length-of-the-field move to help beat Australia in Cardiff. On Saturday he played his last game of international rugby. He won 87 caps for Wales scoring a record 58 tries to add to the two he scored in four tests for the British and Irish Lions.
In 2008 Williams became the first Welshman to win the International Rugby Board International Player of the Year award. Yet his attributes have never been obvious. He has never possessed the power of Jonah Lomu, the balance of Jason Robinson or the sheer pace of David Campese. Williams’s unpredictability, his willingness to take risks, was his greatest strength.
He made his debut for Wales in 2000 under Graham Henry, another Kiwi. The Welsh Rugby Union were struggling to adapt to the demands of the professional game. Without the player base or financial resources of unions in England and France, or the provincial structure in Ireland, Welsh rugby was arguably at its lowest point. Clubs struggled to pay players; grounds faced closure. Henry led the national team to victories over England, France and South Africa in 1999 but sustainable success required change.
Henry’s suggestion was wholesale reform from the ground up based on the model of club and provincial rugby in New Zealand. Their season starts with a club league. From here, players are selected to play for one of five provincial teams in the Super 15 competition against other provincial sides from Australia and South Africa. Super 15 players compete for selection to the three national teams for the Tri-Nations tournament.
The structure would not be so neat in Wales. Several competitions would run simultaneously. A new Welsh Premiership would contain 14 clubs, whose players would compete for selection in four regional teams to participate in the Celtic League, against new regional teams in Scotland and the Irish provinces, and the Heineken European Cup. Midway through the season, the best players would play for their national team in the Six Nations, alongside England, France and Italy.
Henry and other supporters of the proposed changes argued players would be more adequately prepared for international rugby. The only way Wales could compete at international level was to expose players to high intensity rugby as often as possible, and this was not available from local clubs.
But uprooting over a hundred years of history would not be easy. There were no existing borders from which to draw the regions. And how would these teams represent their communities? Cardiff had beaten New Zealand twice but would the Blues make the Arms Park their home? Llanelli too had gained the All Blacks’ scalp but would their philosophy of running rugby continue with the Scarlets? Would the supporters of two great rivals Neath and Swansea unite to cheer the Ospreys?
A decade on, the regional structure has already borne fruit. Each region has identified potential international players at a young age and brought them on quickly for selection in the national team. Wales’s current captain Sam Warburton is just 22. Jamie Roberts, the oldest member of the first-choice back line, is 25. Nineteen-year-old George North is likely to become Williams’s long-term replacement. At 6’4” and 15st 6lb, he dwarfs his predecessor.
Having called time on his international career, Williams will continue with the Ospreys for a year or more. Then, an agreement with the chairman of Amman United could take him back to his boyhood club for one more season. A humble end to a stellar career, and recognition of a link to club rugby which is now broken.
What Welsh rugby has gained from its modernisation is clear. Since the regions were established in 2003, Wales have won two Six Nations Grand Slams, their first such triumphs since the golden era of the 1970s, and exceeded all expectations to reach the semi-final of the 2011 Rugby World Cup. But what it has lost is more difficult to pin down, more ethereal; a spontaneity belonging to a bygone age.
So too is the story of Shane Williams, the lamb to the slaughter who scored more tries for Wales than anyone else. But those moments of abandon, the jinking runs, that sprinkle of stardust will linger long in the memory, for we may never see his ilk again.
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