WATSON: REUNION WON’T TOP BILL
ANTHONY WATSON is set to lock horns with his Lions Tour assailant Sonny Bill Williams again on Saturday – after burying the hatchet with the All Blacks superstar among swaying palm trees.
Williams, below, was sent off for a dangerous tackle on Watson in the second Test of the drawn 2017 Lions series, after which the England wing stayed on for a holiday
– only to run into the Kiwi centre again in
Fiji.
“I saw him in
Fiji two or three weeks after the tour,” said Watson. “It was completely random. Everyone was cracking up in the hotel, but we were just sat there as if nothing had happened.
“I know it was a massive swing of momentum in terms of the Test and the impact it had, but I didn’t see it as the big deal that was made out – that there was a massive drama and we were going to hate each other for the rest of our lives, or anything like that.
“We just talked about all kinds of stuff; about rugby and about his family and stuff like that. It was just a general conversation – we didn’t talk about the tackle.
“He’s a very nice bloke, very down to earth and I don’t hold any type of grudge against him at all.”
Watson is one of 13 players in this England squad who were on that tour and who have personal experience that New Zealand are beatable.
“I was never too fazed by the whole mystique of the All Blacks,” he said. “I respect the prolonged success they’ve had as a team, but the whole aura that surrounds them and the invincible stuff – I never bought into that.
“They are rugby players and we’re rugby players. We work very hard and they work very hard. They are definitely beatable. They’re humans at the end of the day.”