Ospreys’ Owen Williams: ‘Rugby is the worst I’ve seen it since I’ve been a professional’

T here are few people better placed to pass judgment on the precariousness of life as a rugby player in the UK than the Ospreys fly-half Owen Williams. In a little over six months he has broken his thumb, been made redundant, stepped straight into the frying pan that is Welsh regional rugby, become a father and made his first international start, during the Six Nations. Most players go their whole careers experiencing less.

Williams can be forgiven for sounding a little weary as he reflects on the events of this season. On the endless days spent recovering from his injury, watching the number of Worcester players training together dwindle as the lucky ones picked up offers at other clubs. On joining the Ospreys as injury cover and producing the sort of form to make Warren Gatland take note, all the while seeing teammates driven to the brink by uncertainty over their futures brought out by the dispute that came to a head in the week of Wales against England – the very match where Williams wore the national No 10 jersey for the first time.

“There are still some really good players who don’t have jobs. Rugby is the worst I’ve seen it since I’ve been a professional player,” says Williams, speaking as someone who has been professional for 12 years, in two separate spells in Wales, one in Japan and three in England, with Gloucester, Leicester and Worcester. “It’s just unfortunate with the global landscape of rugby and the lack of money, there’s a lot of players on the market. I’ve never seen it like this in professional rugby.”

If that paints a bleak picture of the British game, Williams has nothing but gratitude for the Ospreys picking him up after he had demonstrated his fitness playing for the Barbarians in the autumn.

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