Williamson fronts up as Bulls promise charge
URC: Glasgow Warriors v BullsVenue: Scotsoun Stadium, Glasgow Date: Friday, 25 April Time: 19:35 BSTCoverage: Follow live text coverage on the BBC Sport website & app
Even if he was not the size of a large tower block, when big Max Williamson refers to Friday night's encounter between Glasgow Warriors and the Bulls as a "massive battle", you would not be minded to disagree.Williamson, inching his way back to health in Glasgow's second row after missing four months of the season through injury, is spot on here, A repeat of last year's final and a clash of second versus third in this year's table - it doesn't get a whole lot bigger.The stakes and the rhetoric are high. Bulls head coach Jake White said this week that everybody involved with his team wrote the date of this game on their wall when the fixtures were published.It was a reference to the angst Glasgow dumped on them in Pretoria last summer when the Bulls raced into a 13-0 lead in the United Rugby Championship Grand Final only for the underdogs to bite back and win the thing against the odds."I can promise you, from the day we started pre-season, 25 April was always going to be the game that we were going to go hard for," said White of Friday night.To be fair to Glasgow, they have thrown some petrol on the fire themselves. Earlier in the week, Nigel Carolan, a key coach in Franco Smith's operation, spoke about the arrival of the Bulls and compared Scotstoun to a slaughterhouse.For the South Africans, who have lost two of the past three URC finals, that will be grist to the mill. Quite honestly, Eddie Hearn at his most bombastic could not have done a better job at promoting this game.Speaking on the BBC's Scotland Rugby Podcast, Williamson weighed up the importance of Friday. With only three games left in the league phase and only four points between Glasgow in second and the Bulls in third, the margins are tight.Glasgow are already guaranteed a home quarter-final. Beating the Bulls would go an awfully long way towards securing a home semi-final as well, if they get there. None of this is lost on Williamson, 22.
'We know it's going to be a battle'
These are the dicey times for the Warriors. Of their glorious side that won the title last season, upwards of eight won't be playing in this game, for various reasons, mostly injury.So having Friday starter Williamson back on the pitch this past few weeks, albeit from the bench, is exactly what Smith needed. It's precisely what Williamson wanted, too. He was in serious form in the autumn and played thunderously for Scotland against South Africa at Murrayfield, only to succumb to injury. The Six Nations came and went without him."I injured myself in November, and then re-injured myself in January, which was obviously tough, but it was also a good opportunity," he says."I played a lot of rugby in the last 12 months, so it was a good opportunity to get a bit of physical development. That's kind of the way I tried to spin it. The one advantage of being injured is that I feel really fresh now."What about these angry Bulls, then. "Yeah, huge," comments Williamson. "You know, looking at the table, it's massive. With what happened last year, we know they're going to be coming. They've said it - this is the game for them. So we're up for that too."We know it's going to be a battle on Friday night. That's what it's going to be. We know they're coming here for a physical contest. We want to take the rugby to them and match them in that physical battle."It will definitely be a feisty game. They always bring their physicality and we're not going to stand back and let them do it."Statistically, Glasgow have more points for and fewer points against, more tries for and fewer tries against, more clean breaks, more turnovers won, more bonus points.All the metrics tell you they are favourites to win, but you cannot put a number on aggression and rage for victory. There is no data that records the type of raw desire that White has spoken about.Glasgow will not be lacking in that department either. Andrew Brace is refereeing. Given the fighting talk from both of these heavyweights, he might be as well bring a bell as a whistle to the Scotstoun scrap.
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Despite the national team's decline and uncertainty surrounding the future of the regions, Harries is confident there are better times ahead for Welsh rugby. "The one thing I always cling to is that we always produce good rugby players," he told WalesOnline. "I regularly travel to all the different territories the URC covers. Sign up to Inside Welsh rugby on Substack to get exclusive news stories and insight from behind the scenes in Welsh rugby. "There's still a perception when you chat to people from Ireland, Scotland and South Africa that Wales still has a reputation for producing skilful and gifted rugby players. Article continues below "Take the rise of someone like Blair Murray. "A cynic might say he's come through the New Zealand system and he is a Welsh international but he represents that Welsh flair. "If you were to create a Scarlets player in the lab you'd come up with Blair Murray. "He's a player who plays head-up rugby, is a really skilful footballer and can play in multiple positions across the backline. "If you look at the Scarlets backs there's tons of hope for the future there. "When you consider not so long ago Jonathan Davies and Scott Williams were still in the squad but couldn't get a game because you've got Macs Page, Johnny Williams, Eddie James and Tom Rogers, who is having almost a renaissance, isn't he, after his initial rise. "So, I look at that Scarlets backline and think 'jeez, those players are as skilful as anyone across the domestic leagues in Europe'. "We just need a few nasty, meaty forwards to get our national team back on track. "But we have Dewi Lake and Jac Morgan, who is one of the only genuine world-class players we have. "There's always hope and things do go in cycles. "I'm confident we can climb out of it." This weekend, Harries will lead Premier Sports' coverage of the United Rugby Championship final between Leinster and the Bulls at Croke Park — a massive occasion in one of sport's most iconic stadiums. After more than a decade in broadcasting, you might think the big days would lose their shine but Harries insists they still get the blood flowing. 'We can be a jaded bunch as journalists and broadcasters but I think it's really important that despite all the negativity we experience that we can have those pinch-me moments,' he said. 'I remember one specific game when I presented Ireland v Wales in the Six Nations in Dublin. "It was one of those weekends where everything had been done last minute. We'd done the U20s game in Athlone on the Friday then had a late bus journey to Dublin after that. "Everyone had had a few beers on the bus and I was just sitting there with my laptop scrabbling together the running order for the Test match. "I was flying back that night to present Scrum V in the club, so my mind was frazzled because I was trying to juggle three running orders at once. 'I was aware that audience figures in those Six Nations games get up to 8-9 million figures at times. "You've got all that stuff going through your head, so it can sometimes be easy to lose focus of the bigger picture. "I remember standing there about five minutes before going on air and I was trying to compose myself. "It was a sold-out Aviva Stadium for Ireland versus Wales. It was around the time when that rivalry was at its fiercest. "I was just thinking 'let's get through this and make sure you get to the airport in time to catch your flight'. Join WalesOnline Rugby's WhatsApp Channel here to get the breaking news sent straight to your phone for free "I remember just turning around and Brian O'Driscoll and Gordon D'Arcy were doing some passing drills in the dead ball area directly behind me. "I just had this almost like an epiphany where I went 'jeez, that's one of the greatest centre pairings that's ever played rugby' and here I am standing just yards from them with a mic in hand about to present the coverage of their game against Wales. "It had this really relaxing effect on me and I thought, 'do you know what, I need to appreciate this as it's happening'.' Growing up in the 1980s and early 1990s, Harries had few triumphs to cheer for as a Welsh rugby fan. But as a broadcaster, he's been front and centre for some of the national team's most iconic moments — including Sam Warburton's rise as captain. 'I remember interviewing Sam Warburton when he'd come back from the 2011 World Cup and bless him he was getting so much press coverage," he said. "I almost didn't want to do the interview but I had to do it. I knew he'd be sick of getting asked about the red card. "He was such a gentleman and he was so diplomatic. He handled it so well for a 22-year-old. "We became quite friendly as a result of that. There's always a line you don't want to cross in broadcasting because ultimately you've got to maintain a level of professionalism. "I remember after that 2012 Grand Slam victory over France I was right down on the touchline. "The final whistle blew and Sam was there because he'd come off injured. He just launched himself into the air doing a fist pump before turning around and I was the first person he saw. "He enveloped me in this massive bear hug. It was one of those moments where I thought 'you know what, I've probably compromised my professionalism a bit here and I hope my boss doesn't see that on the coverage' but it felt like 'wow, this is amazing'.' Unfortunately Welsh rugby has slipped back into its old ways with the men's national team slipping to a record 17 defeats in a row and the regions struggling to achieve consistent success. Harries was a prominent journalist in Wales the last time there was a rift of this magnitude between the Welsh Rugby Union and its four professional clubs - Cardiff, Dragons, Ospreys and Scarlets. The future of Welsh rugby is uncertain with a tiered funding model and the possibility of reducing a club or two being considered. Get the latest breaking Welsh rugby news stories sent straight to your inbox with our FREE daily newsletter. Sign up here. Working as a journalist through such turbulent periods is extremely challenging, as Harries knows all too well. "It can get really depressing, can't it?" he added, "I remember there was a long period where there was a huge row which felt never ending when Roger Lewis was CEO. "There was that constant warring between the union and the regions. It wasn't too dissimilar to what we are seeing now, although there seems to be a bit more collaboration now. "I know there's still a lot of antagonism and people have entirely different opinions of how the game should be run. "But back then it got really quite malicious. I was hosting Scrum V. At that point it seemed every Sunday was like presenting Newsnight rather than Scrum V. "It almost became a political show where every week we were trying to hold WRU directors and regional directors to account. "While it was an important subject that needed to be covered I think Welsh rugby fans as a whole just got really jaded with it all and they lost their appetite for rugby. "Ultimately it was a rugby show that was supposed to show highlights and analysis with a bit of fun and humour. "In Wales sometimes if you try to inject a bit of humour you then get accused by the social media mob of trivialising things or not taking things seriously enough. "You have to cover the political stuff and you have to give it the air time it deserves, but equally you have to remember that 80-90% of rugby fans aren't really interested in that." So, what is Harries' views of Welsh rugby's latest crisis? "It is exhausting," he admits. "There seems to be a bit more of a will to compromise than there has been in the past. "Back in the days of Roger Lewis some of those press releases were quite malevolent in tone and it seemed like it was us against them, whereas there seems to be more of an attempt to build a consensus here. "But the numbers just aren't adding up, are they? We've got four regions - none of whom have won anything since Cardiff won the Challenge Cup in 2018. "The sums seem to point towards cutting a region but we all know politically and socially that could be disastrous for Welsh rugby. "In an ideal world what we need is more money. "Look at Rachel Reeves at the moment, she is trying to satisfy everyone but she can't say yes to every request that comes across her desk. "It's almost the same thing in Welsh rugby. The money that Welsh rugby raises isn't sufficient to support four teams that can realistically compete for trophies. "Do we go down to those 2+2, 3+1 or does someone come in and do a David Moffett and take a sledge hammer to it all? "It just seems like we are in no man's land at the moment." Ross Harries is part of the Premier Sports team bringing every game live from the URC and will be lead presenter for URC's Grand Final this Saturday from 4pm on Premier Sports 1 as Leinster take on Vodacom Bulls at Croke Park. Ross will be alongside Tom Shanklin, John Barclay, Simon Zebo, Stephen Ferris, Ian Madigan Ryan Wilson and Rory Hamilton on commentary. Article continues below Premier Sports now broadcasts more than 400 live rugby games every season from the most exciting club rugby competitions in the world. 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