Nor was Hansen a fan, although that appeared to change last Sunday. "He played like a champion,'' Hansen said.At 5ft 7in and a shade over 12st, Williams is no Jonah Lomu or Joe Rokocoko, but he knows where the try-line is and how to get there. Although he has scored 12 tries in 11 Tests, neither Henry nor Hansen gave him an extended run.Williams reminded Hansen of his try-scoring prowess by scoring two pre-season hat-tricks for his club and running in two more tries against Romania in one of Wales's World Cup warm-up matches. "Shane's being doing that for Neath week in, week out for a number of years.''Williams came to the attention of Graham Henry, Hansen's predecessor at Wales, by virtue of being the top try-scorer for his club, and although he produced that at Test level, Henry discarded him, probably on the grounds that he was too small. He was a gymnast as a youngster and played football before switching codes. "I don't know what all the fuss is about,'' Lyn Jones, the Ospreys coach, said. Generally regarded as cannon fodder, Wales went down with all guns blazing, Williams creating one try and scoring another.
I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.'' So did most of the audience of 80,000.The TV commentators had never heard of Williams, and the same goes for John Mitchell, the New Zealand coach. Asked if he had seen Williams before, Mitchell replied: "Is he the No 6?''As both players, Williams and the blindside flanker Jonathan Thomas, had run riot through the All Blacks' defence, perhaps the confusion was understandable. Mitchell would not have known Williams and Thomas from Adam - that's Jones, the prop who plays for the new regional club, the Neath-Swansea Ospreys, also inhabited by Williams and Thomas. A wing in his first spell with Wales, Williams became a member of Steve Hansen's squad as the third-choice scrum-half.
In front of him were Gareth Cooper and Dwayne Peel, and Williams did not get a look-in against Canada, Tonga and Italy in the first three pool matches. To qualify for the quarter-finals, Wales had to beat the Italians, and after managing that, Hansen, the coach, made wholesale changes If it was designed to confuse New Zealand, it succeeded. A few days before the game against the All Blacks, Williams, who played not at No 9 but at 14, was in bed with flu "I didn't know whether I would be playing,'' he said "I am glad I did. Shane Williams was an afterthought, the last addition to the Wales squad of 30. The big battles we have in Wales are people wanting to put their Valley team before the national side. That might have been OK 25 years ago but the world has moved on.".
