Bristol stint helped Max, says McCall

SARACENS rugby director Mark McCall feels that free-scoring Max Malins is reaping the benefit of remaining in the top flight last season, after his four-try haul in Sunday’s 56-15 thumping of Wasps.

Malins thrived during his loan spell with Pat Lam’s Bristol Bears while Sarries were forced to fight their way out of the Greene King IPA Championship in the wake of their enforced relegation for salary-cap breaches last year.

The 24-year-old, below, backed up his hat-trick against Bath last week with another electric show at the StoneX Stadium and England will have a player in the form of his life when he reports for international duty next week.

McCall said: “He wouldn’t have benefitted from playing in the Championship last year.

“Those players who were 23, 24 (years old), we knew we couldn’t afford to stop their development by playing in the Championship for a year and he was one of those.

“You can see with him, Ben (Earl, who was also at Bristol), Nick Tompkins, Alex (Lozowski) as well, they’re all playing really well at the moment.

“It will be interesting to see (where he plays for England) – he’s played four games for us; two at full-back and two on the left wing, which is the rotation we wanted to do.

“I think he prefers playing at 15, if I’m honest, but we’ll wait and see – he’s doing pretty good on the left wing.”

On his team’s performance against Wasps, McCall said: “It wasn’t error-free, there were mistakes along the way, but the pleasing thing was how we dealt with them; we just moved on to the next thing.”

■ Liam Williams is set to be the latest in a long line of star players sidelined for Wales’ clash against New Zealand on Saturday.

The 71-cap British & Irish Lion underwent appendix surgery earlier this month, and although full-back or wing Williams has linked up with the Wales squad ahead of their Autumn Nations Series Tests, the All Blacks game seems likely to arrive too soon.

Wales will be without Englandbased players like Dan Biggar, Taulupe Faletau and Louis ReesZammit because the game falls outside of World Rugby’s international window and they do not have to be released by their clubs.

Head coach Wayne Pivac also has a number of key injured, with Williams’ fellow Lions George North, Josh Navidi and Justin Tipuric all currently out.