How and why Wales are relying on scrum-half Williams
Former Cardiff scrum-half Tomos Williams moved from Gloucester to Saracens for the start of the 2025-26 season [Huw Evans Picture Agency] Wales head coach Steve Tandy says there has been a big demand on the workload of scrum-half Tomos Williams.
Key points
- In those 12 internationals Williams has started, Tandy has used the replacement scrum-half for just 48 minutes with an average of four minutes per game.
- Morgan-Williams and uncapped Dragons scrum-half Che Hope are the other scrum-halves in the autumn squad.
- But at the minute, he's in a great space." Kieran Hardy had been Williams' under-utilised deputy until he picked up a serious knee injury in October that could rule him out of the 2027 World Cup in Australia.
Below is the breakdown of the contribution of the Wales replacement scrum-half in the 12 matches that Williams has started.
Additional details
- The players chosen as bench cover for Williams have played a combined total of only 30 minutes in the past nine Tests in 2026 with Williams starting all the games and completing four of them.
- Williams has playing a full 80 minutes on five occasions with his average minutes per Test at 74.3 minutes, although that includes two yellow cards he has picked up.
- The British and Irish Lions number nine again played the full 80 minutes in the 28-21 defeat of Japan with Rebuen Morgan-Williams an unused replacement.
- Williams has started 12 out of 13 Test matches in the Tandy era and has completed five of those games.
- "So potentially putting Che in to start against New Zealand, those are the things we, as coaches, take into consideration.
How this summary was made: extractive summary — built from the sources' own reporting. It is drawn only from the reporting of the sources listed below — read the originals for full detail. How we summarize →
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