Morris eyes top flight before becoming a ref
LONDON Welsh No.2 Nathan Morris has revealed his longterm ambitions to follow Glen Jackson into the international refereeing arena.
Hooker Morris, an U20s World Cup winner with England in 2013, harbours hopes of a top-flight playing career but already has one eye on the future.
He told The Rugby Paper: “My interest in refereeing stemmed from a match at Exeter in 2012 when I was playing for Wasps and, after we had won penalties off four successive five-metre scrums, we were pinged on the fifth and lost.
“If things had gone differently it could have relegated us and, rightly or wrongly, we felt aggrieved, so I decided to learn more about refereeing to help with my scrum and lineout and over the last 18 months I’ve taken it more seriously.
“It’s difficult because I’m obviously still playing on Saturdays, but I’ve been refereeing at level seven and the RFU are keen to see hookers and half-backs coming through because we tend to be pretty mobile and understand the laws.
“Glen Jackson, below, has done brilliantly to get where his is now and is refereeing Test matches, so while there’s still obviously a long way for me to go, it’s certainly something I’m looking at, postplaying, and the RFU are encouraging me.”
For now, Morris is focusing on his day job and has designs on emulating his old Wasps front row colleague Alec Hepburn, who also dropped out of the top flight to play for Welsh before being snapped up by Exeter Chiefs. Morris said: “I grew up with Alec, he was my housemate for a few years, and he’s made a brilliant transition down at Sandy Park. “They’ve got so many of that England U20s side I played in there – Jack Nowell, Sam Hill, Luke Cowan-Dickie, Henry Slade, Alec and now Ollie Devoto – and it’s brilliant to see a club that’s built from the bottom up with guys like that. “If you’ve given up on playing in the Premiership you should almost pack up playing. I’m only 23, so I’ve got a good few years left yet and if you’re playing week-in, week-out in the Championship, you’re in the shop window.
“Teams like Exeter pick up a lot of Championship tight-five players and you’ve only got to look at what guys like Alec and Mitch Lees have done down there after leaving Welsh, so you never know what’s around the corner.”
London Irish are heavy favourites to claim next season’s Championship title but Morris warns it would be wrong to write off Welsh.
He added: “London Irish will be fully loaded but that’s never bothered this club.We managed to get promotion twice and beat clubs with four or five times our budget, so we know the challenge and are fully prepared for it.
“We finished last season strongly and there’s a lot of quality here. We’ve dropped our numbers but when you look at signings like Kristian Phillips, the quickest winger I’ve seen, and Aaron Carpenter, we’re looking pretty good.”