Grant Williams’ try-scoring potential makes him the standout No 9 in the Republic, according to former Springbok head coach Peter de Villiers.
Speaking on the Behind the Ruck podcast with former Boks Rudy Paige and Juan de Jongh, De Villiers shared his approach to player selection while offering insights into his tenure as national coach.
“A few things. Who don’t I want to play against? That’s number one. If I don’t want to play against you, I will pick you,” De Villiers said.
“Number two. What is your try scoring rate? A rugby player is there to score tries. That is why our scrumhalf now at the Sharks, Grant Williams, is to me the best scrumhalf.”
The 28-year-old Williams is a 2023 World Cup winner with 17 Test caps and four tries, and has made over 60 appearances for the Sharks, also helping them win the EPCR Challenge Cup last year.
“He’s the best scrumhalf not because he’s better than any other scrumhalf. He’s the best scrumhalf because he can score tries. He scores more tries than any other scrumhalf,” De Villiers added.
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“So when I need tries, like Ricky [Januarie in Dunedin in 2009] they will score the try for you, outside the structure of the game… the potential he has and the individual brilliance he brings to the game.”
He touched on untapped potential during his stint with the Boks. “Becoming a Springbok, everybody has [potential] but the most untapped potential was Ruan Pienaar. We messed up Ruan Pienaar in this country, me and the Sharks,” De Villiers said.
“He’s such a good rugby player that he can play anywhere. But under pressure, he will fold in any other position except flyhalf. And when he played [flyhalf] for us [the Boks], we scored three and more tries in Tests.”
Reflecting on his 2008-2011 tenure as the first black coach of the Boks, De Villiers acknowledged the challenges he faced.
“I’m at my best when people are negative towards me, because I thrive on negativity. Taking over from a World Cup-winning Springbok coach [Jake White]… You’ve been announced as not there for rugby reasons only… It took me a year to build that trust.”
De Villiers, who achieved a 62.5% win ratio with 30 wins from 48 Tests, pointed to Januarie’s famous try at Carisbrook against the All Blacks as a turning point for him.
“Everyone believed then that, ‘wow, he’s not too bad’, and the players started believing in each other.”
Comparing his era to the current setup under Rassie Erasmus, De Villiers noted, “The money that we pump into the game now is so much more. We had 30, 40 guys. They got 80 guys to come to camps to prepare. The next level guy is actually almost there; I think that in its own sense is a very good thing.
“The one thing that I can say about the past is that we prepared for games. We never prepared for teams. We wanted to go win the games.”
Photo: Anton Geyser/Gallo Images
