SUPER 14 - Beegee's boy makes his own mark in the rugby world

Being the son of Bryan "Beegee" Williams inevitably means comparison with the All Black legend for Blue's fullback Paul Williams, but it's something that stopped bothering him some time ago.
"It's something I got used to at a young age and I'm not trying to be him or anything like that, but I'm quite used to the idea that people will compare us and I don't resent it," he said.
Williams has been something of a rugby nomad since first coming to prominance as a member of Auckland age-group representative sides. He made his debut for the Highlanders way back in April 2003, but missed nearly three seasons of rugby after suffering a broken leg - that healed poorly - ironically suffered in a match against the Blues at Eden Park.
Injury has been a trying part of his rugby career. This year he missed two matches after almost comically injuring a thigh in the warm-up before the fourth round match against the Sharks - it may have been funny to some, but not to Williams. "Injuries are one of those things you've just got to accept as a rugby player, it's nice to be back on the field now and it just adds more motivation for making the second half of the season a big one for us."
He has also played for Canterbury, rising to become the vice-captain in last year's Air New Zealand Cup victory, but he decided that his southern sojourn had gone on long enough. "It was a fairly easy decision to make really. I grew up in Auckland, my family is there and I've got most of my school mates there so it was a fairly natural thing to do," he said.
"The rugby opportunities made it possible but it also worked that I was closing off a long-distance relationship that I'd had and she's moved back to Auckland with me, where-as before she was living in Wellington and I was in Christchurch."
Williams said he regretted leaving a good set-up in Christchurch, but the time had come. "There were great coaches, a great team and I learned a lot and I'm now trying to feed that back into this set-up.
"We've got to get back to our winning ways and set a good platform to lead off from and as a team get in a position to win the competition - we've obviously got a lot of work to do before we get there and personally I'd like to have a big input individually to that."
His own individual goals are simple for a player who has had such a horror run with injury. "To stay on the field, to be fit and to play some good rugby ..."
Williams hopes the side has used the bye to put their past two games - against the Chiefs and the Warratahs - behind them. "Some games just don't come out the way you planned and you've got to park those ones and move on to the next."
The next is a pivitol match - against the Lions - starting tomorrow night at 7.30pm at Eden Park.