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AIX-EN PROVENCE - Arguably the form All Blacks player through the early part of their rugby World Cup campaign, lock Ali Williams reckons there's ample room for both he and his teammates to improve.
Williams will become the only player to start all the first three pool matches when he runs onto Murrayfield to face Scotland on Monday morning (NZ time).
The man who last week said it would be "a dream" to start all the maximum seven games at the tournament reckoned he was only warming to his task.
Against Italy and Portugal Williams made several of his staple bursts with ball and hand and clever offloads.
However, the 26-year-old demanded more from himself this week, particularly the more bruising elements of his game.
"I'm probably running about 65-70 (per cent) at the moment," he said.
"Physically I can go up a lot. I think I'm getting around the track all right but just physically I could dominate a lot more, I can't wait to get into a bit of tackling."
Williams has worn a yellow jersey at training after each of those lopsided wins, indicating he was the best tight forward on the park in the eyes of the coaches.
The lanky Aucklander, whose test season was disrupted for six weeks by the broken jaw suffered against France in early June, hoped it wouldn't be the last time he adorns the jersey.
"Things are going well but I want to be there at the end of the tournament with the yellow jersey on, I suppose," he said.
"I'd like to see myself playing the best rugby that I've ever played by the end of this tournament."
Williams said the conditioning programme at the start of this year had done wonders for he and his teammates, many of whom he believed were also edging towards lifetime peaks - hopefully come the tournament playoffs.
"It's given us the ability to get to a physical level we've never got to before," he said.
"Week in, week out, it just takes it out of you, smashing each other.
"When you don't have a period to relax and then to build, you're going straight back into the stage of being belted.
"I feel that we're going along good and that, as a team, we're going to offer a lot more."
Williams also revealed a renewed mental approach the game, one that sees him value every test, no matter the occasion or opposition.
At the forefront of his motivation still was an accident suffered by his father Rodney eight years ago when he fell down a set of stairs and was paralysed from the neck down.
"I've had a few incidents in my life that make me realise the importance of every moment," he said.
"My father's injury and things like that, you've just got to treasure every moment as it comes."
Williams has strong Scottish ancestry on his mother's side.
As a youth he spent a lot of time at the family holiday home in North Berwick on the east coast of the country.
- NZPA
