Jeremy Guscott has named Wales’ Louis Rees-Zammit among four wings capable of lighting up the league season in England.
The 6ft 3in, 15st 1lb wide-man is still only 21, but he had an excellent tour of South Africa in the summer, unlocking the world champions’ defence brilliantly with two tries in the opening game of the three-Test series and showing up well in defence as well as attack over the campaign.
With Henry Arundell, Anthony Watson and Joe Cokanasiga, he has now received the seal of approval from one of rugby’s most iconic attacking players of the past 40 years.
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Writing in his column in The Rugby Paper, Guscott says: “Henry Arundell, Louis Rees-Zammit, Anthony Watson and Joe Cokanasiga are four wingers who can light up the field in any company, and that is a mouth-watering prospect at the start of the new Premiership season.
“Rees-Zammit is only 21, but the length of his highlights reel for Gloucester, Wales and the Lions makes it seem as if he’s been around at international level a lot longer than a couple of years.”
He continues: “Rees-Zammit has all the armoury, whether it is out-and-out pace, the swerve and the sidestep or the accurate chip ahead. He is so quick and shows such skill that he has scored some amazing tries already — but then people started questioning whether his positioning and defence is what it should be.
“The brilliant tackle and turnover [he] won on his own line for Wales against South Africa this summer proved how hard he’s working on that side of the game — and he was very unfortunate to be yellow-carded.”
Indeed, the work in those moments from Rees-Zammit added up to one of the moments of the series as he tracked back at lightning speed to not only haul down Willie le Roux when a try had seemed certain but also lock over the ball.
Maybe it happened a bit quickly for the referee on the day, though, as he yellow-carded the Welsh player, a decision legendary Welsh official Nigel Owens later described as “a bit harsh”.
But the episode underlined how far Rees-Zammit was progressing with his game. The Gloucester man had earlier reminded all of his attacking prowess by moving from 0 to 60 in the blink of an eye as he crossed for a try and then showcasing his predatory instincts as he hacked a loose ball ahead, regathered and crossed the home line before some South African defenders had even realised what was happening.
“It’s all about wingers like Rees-Zammit getting into the game as much as possible. It is about communication and reading the game so that you can get your hands on the ball and can use your array of skills and speed,” says Guscott, who was capped 65 times for England and made eight Lions Test appearances over three tours.
The challenge for Wales is to make maximum use of the flying machine they have in their ranks.
Do that and any opposing teams will be concerned.
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