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Wales rookie Hawkins explains fear of being 'too one-dimensional'

By PA
(Photo by Huw Fairclough/Getty Images)

Joe Hawkins is a leader of Wales’ exciting young rugby generation, but he admits that his rapid rise has proved quicker than expected. The 20-year-old Ospreys centre has made an immediate impression on Wales head coach Warren Gatland with notable footballing ability and all-round excellence.

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Hawkins made his Test debut against Australia during this season’s Autumn Nations Series, which turned out to be the final game of Wayne Pivac’s Wales coaching reign. And Gatland had no hesitation in retaining him for Wales’ Guinness Six Nations opener against Ireland when, along with the likes of wing Rio Dyer and flanker Jac Morgan, he again underlined his quality.

“This is a new team with players with different skills and different strengths and he brings something that is a little bit different,” Gatland said after selecting Hawkins to face Ireland. “He is a lovely footballer and I wanted to give him the reassurance and confidence after the Australia performance to start again.”

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Mike Forshaw gives thoughts on what Wales are to expect against Scotland

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Mike Forshaw gives thoughts on what Wales are to expect against Scotland

Hawkins looks set to feature in Saturday’s appointment with Scotland at Murrayfield and he has settled seamlessly at Test level, already developing a strong midfield combination with 110 times-capped George North. “I have always tried to be as rounded as possible. The way the game is going, you can’t be too one-dimensional,” Hawkins said.

“I like the ball-play, but you have got to be able to bash it up a little bit as well. On the field, it would probably be quite easy to go within yourself a little bit, but if you want to compete with the players in camp you have got to try and be bold and be vocal.

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“When you come in with big characters, if you want to impact the game and training, you can’t go into your shell. They would rather it if you are vocal and demanding on the field, so that is what you have got to try and do. When you are in the under-20s, you see the senior team playing and you have always got ambitions of going on and playing for the senior team.

“I probably didn’t think it would happen as quickly as it has done. It is a bit surreal being out there on the training field. I guess it’s just trying to take in all the experience they (senior players) have, and then put it into your game.

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“All you can do is take care of business back at your region and hope you get a bit of recognition internationally. I wasn’t expecting it to happen as quickly as this. I just focus on playing for the Ospreys, and then whatever happens, happens.”

The Hawkins family has a proud rugby tradition, with Joe’s father David a former Aberavon centre, his uncle Dan also an accomplished player and grandfather Brian a Wales Youth cap who played for Newport and Newbridge.

“When I was younger, he (David) coached me a bit, so he was always giving me advice along the way, but these days he lets me crack on,” Hawkins added. “They have been loving it. It’s almost like living another career through me. They are all really proud. If I am involved on Saturday, they will be making the trip up to Scotland.”

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J
JW 5 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

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