Scrum half Rhodri Williams insists Dragons will ‘dig deep’ to build their game during pre-season as the squad prepare to kick-off preparations.
Many of the players will return to the club’s Ystrad Mynach training base a week today (June 12) as the long countdown to the new BKT United Rugby Championship and EPCR Challenge Cup season commences.
With the Rugby World Cup launching in early September, Williams acknowledges it will be a lengthy and unusual pre-season campaign for the Men of Gwent.
But the 30-year-old – who got married this off-season – insists the squad are determined to put in the hard yards to make strides this season.
“Pre-season is always hard and this year we’ve got three of them in total! It is very different - definitely the longest that I’ve done,” said Williams.
“It’s in the hands of the strength and conditioning coaches, physios, Dai (Flanagan) and rest of the coaching staff and there will be a clear plan in place.
“We will probably break the game down into small areas and this gives us time to dig deep and look at how we want to build our game moving forward.
“We will come back for day one with open minds so that we can make steps in the right direction for October. It’s exciting and we have got a lot of work to do.”
Williams will this season see himself up against even more competition with Dane Blacker among the new faces set to arrive at HQ.
But it is a challenge that Williams – who has been a key figure since arriving from Bristol in 2018 – is ready to embrace.
“There's more competition and we are fortunate with that at 9 here with me, Gonzo, Lewis Jones, Dane coming into the fold plus Che Hope and Morgan Lloyd coming through,” he said.
“We are stacked in that position, but we learn bits off each other because we each have areas of our game that are strong.
“We have good working relationships as 9s and help each other out as much as we can. If you see something that another player hasn’t then you try to open their eyes up to it.
“It’s that one goal as a team and it is positive competition. There are things that I have learnt from Gonzo plus the extra bit of motivation to get your best game out on the park.”
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We will come back for day one with open minds so that we can make steps in the right direction for October. It’s exciting and we have got a lot of work to do...
