It is rare that you have an uninteresting conversation with a prop. There is something about the intensity of the alpha-male toughness you need to stand in the front row of the scrum, and the brutal, exposing nature of that job that creates fascinating, thoughtful, sometimes vulnerable, big men.
Harry Williams, the 34-year-old tight-head, is in this category. Dreadlocks sprout from his head, tattoos mark most of his body, and his nose is bent slightly left to right. But beneath the tough exterior is a softly spoken man of faith, who loves music festivals and believes in fate and God’s mysterious ways.
At Exeter Chiefs, he used to provide amusing commentary on the Great British Bake Off on social media, before he was part of their double-winning team of 2020. In 2015 he was plucked by Rob Baxter from the Championship, where he had played for Nottingham and Jersey Reds, after leaving Loughborough University. He won the Premiership title two years later and made his England debut the same summer.
Williams, right, is back in the Prem with Quins and relishing his fresh start
SIMON DAEL
His 19th and last cap came in 2021, and in 2023 he left the Chiefs, alongside many others, to join Montpellier for one season, then Pau for another. Now he is back in England, playing for Harlequins — the team he first watched as a child from Crystal Palace — and speaking publicly for the first time in five years.
Williams never intended to come home, but he is loving it, as is his family, who spent years ferrying from Dulwich to Devon, or the south of France, but now only have to pop over to Twickenham to watch Harry play.
“When I first started watching games, I went to watch Quins v Sale with my dad. Sébastien Chabal was playing and they were coached by Philippe Saint-André, who then signed me for Montpellier. It’s a very small circle, rugby,” Williams says.
“I ended my time at Chiefs in rehabilitation, as I blew my knee out against Quins. It’s very weird the way things move. I didn’t think I was going to come back to England when I left Chiefs. It felt quite final. It’s like I’ve sort of been sent here — maybe that’s the wrong word. I feel my life is very complete.
Williams says life in the front row can be “quite exposing”, especially when the match is not going well
MARC ASPLAND FOR THE TIMES
“It’s made playing rugby very fresh. When I left Pau, I felt a little bit of burnout, probably for the first time. I just needed time away from the game completely, and I’ve felt very refreshed since coming back.”
Williams is not the sort of guy who ever sought, or particularly enjoyed, the limelight. While much happened quickly for him ten years ago when he broke into the Premiership as a 24-year-old, he feels he benefited from his circuitous journey to the top, which included time working as a bakery cleaner in Auckland.
He does not look back with misty eyes — “that’s a regressive mindset” — but would have liked to make more of his England days between 2017 and 2021.
“I’d just enjoy the whole thing a little bit more,” he says. “Sometimes you get on a roll of playing and you don’t realise what a privileged position you’re in. I could have had more joy in it.”
The life of the prop can be quite exposing, he says. “With the international stuff, fans can be very nasty,” Williams explains. “It doesn’t really bother me particularly, those other pressures that I felt, but I know a lot of lads feel a lot of pressure from people speaking about them online. If you’re doing that, you need to just check yourself. What are you doing?
England duty was a privilege for Williams and the games were “sweet” but he wishes he’d made more of the camps
DAN MULLAN/GETTY IMAGES
“I know people have a right to say whatever they want, but it really gets to some people, and when you play in those kind of situations, the pressure can sometimes ruin it for you.
“You’re a long time retired, and you don’t want to look back on your whole career thinking, ‘I was worried about what someone was saying,’ or, ‘If I have a bad performance, will I look like a dick on TV?’ Excuse my language. That’s more a global point than a personal one. I wish I’d enjoyed the camps more. The games were always sweet, but no sadness, no regrets.”
Williams worries on behalf of front-rowers who are thrust into the cauldron when they are kids.
“At prop, it’s a lonely place when you’re on the receiving end of a shoveling. It’s also character building,” he says. “You don’t want to come across with the younger lads like an old uncle, going ‘Back in my day…’ and all that, but you want to say to them, ‘It doesn’t matter if it takes a little bit longer, because you don’t want to get put out too early.’
Williams returns on Sunday to Exeter, where he won the Premiership title in 2017 and the Double in 2020, but he wonders if people there will “even care” after so much upheaval at the club
MARC ASPLAND FOR THE TIMES
“I had plenty of time with plenty of good coaches, playing, getting experience. If you’re 20 and you get put out in a game that you probably shouldn’t be getting put out in, it can do quite a lot of damage mentally. You see your face up on the big screen, after giving away a penalty. It really plays on your mind. It can be bad.
“I realise now, with the gift of hindsight, that patience generally wins, especially when you’re a forward, and sometimes it’s delayed gratification.”
What Williams does love, though, is how props are becoming so much more celebrated and understood. He saw that first-hand in France, where forward battles are ingrained.
“They’re not trying to rush away from those set pieces, whereas in the UK, I feel there’s an aversion to it, because they want to make the game ‘more attractive’. Whereas the French value a dominant set piece. The South Africans have changed it as well, with the ‘bomb squad’ and going for a 7-1 bench in the World Cup final.”
When Williams was at Exeter, they celebrated their forwards, who drove them to two titles. He is going to find it strange playing at Sandy Park on Sunday, two days after the five-year anniversary of the Chiefs’ extraordinary Champions Cup win. He and Stu Townsend, the Harlequins scrum half, are among the first double-winners to go back. The club has changed so much, so quickly, so Williams wonders what reception he will get.
Williams, left, believes England is catching up with France in appreciating the forward battles and a dominant set piece as much as free-flowing rugby
SIMON DAEL/SHUTTERSTOCK
“Will they even care?” he asks. “The world of professional sport moves so quickly. You disembark the bus and the bus keeps driving. We achieved a lot on the field, but as you get more experience on the field, you realise the game is very transient, but the relationships are what remain.”
Williams finds it odd, having been a proud member of the Exeter misfits, to be part of an “institution” club like Harlequins. “There’s a different weight wearing the quarters,” he says.
But he is determined to “ride the donkey till the legs give out”, having realised that while rugby can be mentally and physically painful, there is nothing else he would rather do.
“I don’t really have a plan for world domination, but I still love the job,” Williams says. “Love playing the games, love being with the boys, love the training. Some people go their whole lives without being put outside their comfort zone, and they live in this little shell, like a comfortable cloud.
“Whereas every week we get the opportunity to go out there, and it might go well, it might go badly. You feel nervous, you’re being watched by people, and it’s tense, there’s ups and downs. People see it negatively or try to shy away from it, but I think it’s a blessing to be able to experience that, so I just want to enjoy it while I still can.”
Exeter Chiefs v Harlequins
Gallagher Prem, Sandy Park
Sunday, 3pm
TV TNT Sports 1