Wales rugby crisis: Shane Williams hopes Ospreys can capitalize on player strength

Williams says the uncertainty has been worrying with current Ospreys head coach Mark Jones saying the team has heard nothing from Y11.

“Is there a consequence, do we know what’s going on?” said Williams, who is head of rugby at West Wales Schools, which plays in the Welsh Schools and Colleges Rugby League.

“The last few weeks have been very upsetting for someone who has been linked to the Ospreys since the beginning, so I can’t imagine what the current players are going through.

“It’s hard and feels very personal to me. Boys I teach come up to me and ask me if there’s a chance the Ospreys are gone because they can’t believe it.

“I try to explain and give positives about it, but there are none.”

Williams described how the former player’s movement came about.

“We got together in a Whatsapp group and started talking about what we could do as coaches and former players,” Williams said.

“For me and a lot of other boys, we started with the Ospreys, and we were part of that identity.

“When you play rugby with the guys, even though when you finish and go on different paths in life, you stay close…you’ll always have that special connection.”

Williams hopes that the players’ intervention did not come too late.

“We felt a little outdated and redundant in the fact that we haven’t done much for the Ospreys lately,” Williams said.

“We needed to get our act together and prove how important the Ospreys are to us, the community and the current players and coaches.

“Mark Jones [Ospreys head coach] Send me a voice message a week.

“You can tell how important the support of the senior players is to him and the players.”