GEORGE WILLIAMS insists his England team-mates make him look good but there’s no doubt he’s got his mojo back.
Warrington’s half-back endured a torrid time in club colours this year, misfiring as badly as the St James’ Park PA system which blew to ruin Saturday’s World Cup opening ceremony. But England boss Shaun Wane always had faith in the silky playmaker he developed at Wigan. And even though Kaiser Chiefs’ pre-match show was cut short by those technical gremlins, dynamic Williams made sure the party got going with the underdogs’ brilliant ten-try rout of much-fancied Samoa.
He scored one try, created two more and when he wasn’t running into the heart of freaked-out opponents was kicking them to death. But Williams, 27, insisted: “It helps when our middles lay the platform like they did and I can just play my own game. We’ve some classy backs. I just feed them the ball and they make me look good.
“It was a really good performance. The most impressive part was they only scored one try and that was an interception. They'd some big bodies and caused us a bit of trouble with offloads but overall our defence was unreal. And to score 60 is beyond our dreams.”
His partner-in-crime was Jack Welsby, the St Helens utility who opened the scoring when supporting Williams’ burst. His passing quality set up flying winger Dom Young for two wonderful tries before he also sent Williams over. Some wondered if, at just 21, Welsby would up to it starting at half in his maiden Test appearance.
But, preferred to the more prosaic Marc Sneyd, he looked like he’d been playing international rugby league years. And Williams added: “There was zero doubt in my mind. We trained the last couple of weeks together and I played with him before. Jack’s a world-class player. We’ve seen that today with some of his passes and when he went over for the first try. We’ve a good little combination going and hopefully we can build on that.”
Wane says all those who didn’t play - such as Sneyd, Salford hooker Andy Ackers, 18th man Kai Pearce-Paul and the banned John Bateman - will get a run-out against France at Bolton on Saturday as England bid to edge closer to finishing top of Group A. Samoa, fielding seven NRL Grand Finalists, were given hope when Izack Tago picked off Welsby’s pass to make it 18-6 at the break. But they suffered three injuries and were shambolic in the second half, conceding six tries in the final 16 minutes following Anthony Milford’s sin-binning.
With Aussie loose forward Victor Radley immense, England roared home to raise hopes they could become the first British side to win the World Cup in 50 years. Elliott Whitehead (2), Tom Burgess, Herbie Farnworth, Tommy Makinson - who also booted ten goals - and Kallum Watkins got their other tries. Even the embarrassing ten-minute hold-up due to those technical glitches didn’t put them out of their stride.
Ex-Canberra star Williams said: “We were ready to go out but then had to just chill out a little and refocus. Looking at the performance, it didn’t put us off at all.”
