Warrior Willison on the up after stagnating in France
AFTER seeing his creative talent stifled in France, Worcester’s new Kiwi centre signing Jackson Willison reckons a spell in the more attack-minded Premiership will unlock his full potential.
Willison, 27, was a Super Rugby winner with Waikato Chiefs in 2012 and has represented New Zealand Maori, but he decided to try his luck with Top 14 outfit Grenoble two years ago after realising his hopes for an All Blacks call-up were receding.
France proved no panacea, however, within the forward-dominated confines of French rugby.
“It was a nice change initially, but once you got into the grind of French rugby I felt my rugby suffered,” Willison told The Rugby Paper. “The game was slower and tended to be a lot more forward-orientated. It’s quite frustrating at times because it’s so resultsdriven and as long as you get the win, no matter how clean or dirty the game is, everyone there is happy.
“That’s not me at all, really, and I struggled with the coaching and the language, so I’m at a time in my career where I need to take more control now and I feel this move to Worcester can only be beneficial to my game.”
Willison explained: “I just think the rugby here offers a nice balance between France and New Zealand. The interest from Worcester came out of the blue, but the club’s well setup and the plan is to play some decent footy.
“We’ve a young bunch of lads that are willing to learn, but we’ve also got plenty of experience in guys like myself, Bryce Heem, Cooper Vuna, Wynand Olivier and Ben Te’o so it’s the perfect environment for me.
“It’s a club on the way up – which is where I see my career going – and you look at the success other Kiwi guys like Nick Evans and Jimmy Gopperth have enjoyed in England, so if they can do it, why can’t I do it too?
“I still want to be the best player I can be and I’m at an age where I’ve learnt a lot but there’s still much more to come.
“I watched a lot of Premiership on TV last year and was impressed by the willingness to play, so it’ll be good for my rugby.”
Worcester’s pre-season results were poor but Willison insists nothing can be read into defeats by Clermont, Jersey and Munster.
He added: “I try not to make excuses, but there was a big emphasis on fitness and we went into those games on the back of full training weeks.
“But we tapered off into the season and I expect us to have a lot of energy now, so all that S&C work should hopefully pay off.”