Wales turn to Evans... the winger born to run
STEFF EVANS is the wing wizard ready to dazzle his way into Wales’s World Cup plans this autumn, having escaped the ‘evasion box’.
Raised in Five Roads, a hamlet in Carmarthenshire, the Scarlets man will lift bums from seats at the Principality Stadium — by putting defenders on theirs.
dubbed the hottest Welsh property since Shane Williams, the 5ft 10in, 12st 12lb winger is no hulking behemoth. He was born to run round, not through.
‘I was never the best kicker, so just kept running,’ Evans, 23, tells
Sportsmail. ‘I look to commit the defender. Get close to him.
‘You can tell which way someone is going by looking at their legs — if they have planted their feet, or are sitting back on their heels.
‘Scarlets have this evasion box — it is two metres square and there is a “gate” either side. You have to beat your man in the box.
‘there’s a board at the club that shows the top three for most defenders beaten from the weekend — if I am not on it I know I need to up my game.
‘One week (Wales hooker) Ken Owens beat me! He was top and kept on at me all week. next week I thought, “I’m going to have to do him here”. I beat 10 defenders!’
Evans beats a lot of defenders. In seven matches he has seated the most in the Pro14 — 34.
With a league-leading 13 tries last season and five already this, Evans demands international recognition. He will win his third cap on Saturday against Australia.
Evans started playing at home with brother Rhys, two years older.
Mum Joanna, a school cook, could hardly keep them indoors, and Evans would totter down to trimsaran RFC to watch his father Martin referee and play.
‘He was a very strict ref, liked to answer everyone back and give his cards out,’ Steff says. ‘When he played I swear he used to get a yellow card every week! You can’t be giving them out so much if you kept getting them as a player!’
Evans’s Five Roads primary school was only tiny. ‘But we had a teacher who gave penalties against us for kicking,’ he says. ‘they wanted to throw the ball around. It was perfect for me.’
At llanelli RFC he looked too small to be a centre, despite winning player of the month early on. But one game at full back and Wales under 18s came calling.
then the breakthrough year. the smoking-hot Scarlets painted the Pro12 red en route to a semi-final, with their young winger flying.
But he was shot down away to leinster in May. two minutes before half-time, he tipped Garry Ringrose in a tackle and was sent off. ‘If we had lost I would have been the most hated Scarlets player. I was so upset,’ Evans says.
Remarkably, the Scarlets won 27- 15. And thanks to expert counsel from coach Wayne Pivac, and a sympathetic hearing, the red was rescinded before the final. ‘I told Wayne, “I owe you a few beers after that!” ’ Evans laughs. ‘It was one of the best feelings I’d had.’ until the following weekend!
Scarlets beat Munster 46-22, Evans scored and the dublin party went long into the night.
A test in ‘horrible’ humid Samoa followed, after his debut against tonga in Auckland.
Evans rates those his worst displays last season, despite scoring twice. Self-criticism may not be fair, but it is working. He has hit form again and is primed to hunt Wallabies. Indeed Evans cannot wait for another shot.
‘to wear the jersey more than once would be one of the best things you can do,’ he smiles.
‘Even if I had to go back out to Samoa I would — I’d walk there!’