‘Tomos could be a real star’ – Ex-British and Irish Lion believes Williams’ style ‘suits’ Andy Farrell’s team
British and Irish Lions scrum-half Tomos Williams and an inset of Scarlets head coach Dwayne Peel.
Tomos Williams, Gallagher Premiership player of the season, can be the ace up the sleeve of Andy Farrell’s 2025 British and Irish Lions.
That is the belief of Dwayne Peel, Scarlets head coach and one of a long line of Welsh scrum-halves to star for rugby’s greatest touring side.
Peel followed in the footsteps of Sir Gareth Edwards, Brynmor Williams, Terry Holmes, Robert Jones and Rob Howley when starting all three Tests in New Zealand for the 2005 tourists.
That was a Wales-heavy squad, whereas Farrell’s Australia-bound tourists contain only Williams and Jac Morgan from the Dragons’ lair.
Tomos Williams primed to shine
In Williams, however, they have a jack-in-a-box playmaker, a man capable of jaw-dropping brilliance, as Gloucester fans will readily testify.
And Peel reckons the 65-cap son of Treorchy can be the spark that sets alight a Lions squad packed with fly-half magicians and explosive runners on a 10-match tour which kicks off in Dublin tomorrow against Argentina.
“I think Tomos is outstanding, honestly, the way he goes about his game,” said Peel. “He’s such a skilful player.
“If he gets the right platform ahead of him, and like any nine he needs the right platform to be able to show his talent, I think playing with the best players of the four countries, he could really set it alight.
“We’ve seen this year he’s been really on form with a Gloucester side that wants to play attractive rugby, that wants to run and throw the ball around. That suits his style of game.
“Now look at the backs the Lions have picked. Farrell’s selection of Finn Russell and Marcus Smith as 10s shows he’s going to try and be creative. These Lions are going to want to throw the ball around and I think Tomos could be a real star.”
Williams, 30, starts on the bench against the Pumas, with England’s Alex Mitchell given the nod at nine. Ireland’s Jamison Gibson-Park is ante-post favourite to get the Test slot but he misses tomorrow’s outing with a slight injury.
“Everyone has an opportunity”
“All three of them are outstanding players,” said Peel, the youngest Lion in 2005 and two years after that the youngest to reach 50 caps for Wales.
“Farrell knows Gibson-Park really well and that definitely will count for something. He’s run the show for him for the last couple of seasons so, if you’re sitting there now as a betting man, you probably have him in the box seat.
“But as we all know Lions tours are unique. You come on tour, you play well when you get your chance and you put yourself right in the mix. That’s the beauty of the Lions. Everyone has an opportunity.”
To gain Lions selection from a team on the longest losing run in the history of Wales rugby is some achievement. Farrell is not alone in wondering how good Williams and Morgan might be surrounded by winners.
The first objective is to make it onto the plane. Four years ago Alun Wyn Jones dislocated a shoulder in the warm-up match against Japan at Murrayfield and missed the flight.
He somehow made it back, both to full fitness and to South Africa, in time for the Test series. But that was Jones, the world’s most capped player. That doesn’t happen to other people.
And so it is that Morgan starts tomorrow, and Williams finishes, with both crossing fingers they come through unscathed against opponents out to repeat, or even better, their shock draw with the Lions back in 2005.
“They’re going to be right up for it,” said Peel. “I didn’t play in the ’05 game but they got a draw and the scenes in their camp at the end were mad.
“This is a difficult game for a Lion because you want to go on the tour and you’re always thinking, ‘Oh s**t, if I get injured in this game I don’t get to set foot in Australia’.
“Everyone wants to play, obviously, but you want to get on the flight. For me, Australia is where this tour really starts.”
The old adage is that once you cross the Lions’ threshold there are no nationalities, only Lions. Peel agrees with that but agrees every man and woman in Wales will be rooting for Williams and Morgan.
These are dark times for Welsh rugby. The national men’s team has lost 17 successive internationals. Its last match was a 68-14 thrashing at home by England – a record defeat for Wales in Cardiff, the most points they have conceded at the Principality Stadium and their heaviest Six Nations beating.
The women fared no better, matching the men’s whitewash by losing all five of their Six Nations encounters.
Controlling the controllables
The only bright spot has been the form of Peel’s Scarlets, who reached the quarter-finals of the United Rugby Championship and pushing eventual champions Leinster hard for 72 minutes.
“With everything going on on the outside [in Wales] all we’ve spoken about is controlling what we can control, being the best that we can,” explained Peel.
“This a club and region with a proud rugby tradition. It’s been about trying to buy into what we’re about because when I came back I felt the DNA of the club was missing a bit.
“Culturally, off the field we’ve done a lot of work about what the club has meant historically to the players and the community. We’ve always had a strong heritage here, a strong tradition, the club meaning everything to the community, to the local town, and now further afield in West Wales as well.
“Finding that balance of why we play the game is always difficult with the younger guys, but they need to understand that. People don’t always talk much about the romantic side of rugby in the professional game, but I think there’s a massive place for it.”
He thinks Wales can use a bit of that as well.
“There’s a structural side of the game in the Wales that needs to be reorganised but we also have to reignite a bit of the DNA of what we represent,” Peel added.
“The Wales football team at the moment has a real identity of who they are and what they represent. For us, as a national rugby team, that also has to play a part.
“We do have good young players in this country. If we get structure and culture right I think there’s a great opportunity for us. I refuse to be doom and gloom.
“There are decisions that are going to have to be made, some tough decisions which we need to get right, and there might be some hard yards still to go. But the opportunity is there to get it right. We can’t waste that.”
Since 2015 Scarlets have provided more uncapped players to the Wales team than any other region and Peel has them on an upward trajectory.
His fervent wish is that their rise is mirrored by the Wales team in Japan this summer – and, of course, the Lions down under.
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