Pre-season is not necessarily the time or place to be making big statements about promising young rugby players, but you don’t have to view the game through a particularly analytical lens to understand that 20-year-old Mason Grady has got a big future ahead of him.
He was one half of a young centre partnership alongside Max Llewellyn when Cardiff stepped up their preparations for the new season at Kingsholm on Friday night. It was a staccato performance from a mix-and-match side against a Gloucester side who were primed for the start of their new Premiership season next weekend.
The Cherry and Whites scored from four driving lineouts in the first half. The game was over at that point and spoke to the nature of it. There were errors and Cardiff were largely outmuscled.
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Not the ideal platform, then, for a young centre to shine bright. But, particularly as the Blue and Blacks grew into the second half, Grady began to show some promising touches. He regularly made in-roads with the ball in hand and Gloucester got absolutely no change out of the midfield despite picking the formidable duo of Mark Atkinson and British and Irish Lions centre Chris Harris.
Keeping players of that calibre quiet is no mean feat and what particularly pleased director of rugby Dai Young is how much Grady seems to have improved since making his return from a year out with injury in the dismal 69-21 defeat to Zebre at the end of last season.
Young said: “He’s obviously quality. You can’t coach size and you can’t coach speed – he’s got both of them in abundance. You could see that he was always getting penetration when he had the ball and he was always threatening.
“Defensively, he looked really comfortable. Another pleasing thing is if you look at Mason and Max Llewellyn and compare them to where they were back in Italy for the last game of the season, they’ve come on leaps and bounds. Unfortunately, sometimes you have to have bad experiences to learn from.”
Let us not profess that Grady has arrived just yet, but the early signs are good. Young praised the less experienced members of his side for not folding when the score "could have gotten" ugly.
There was one instance when Ben Meehan shoved Grady and tried to get in his face after the whistle had gone. Grady stood there and laughed before trotting away. These things speak to his character and temperament, they bode well. He also looks made for professional rugby and his exploits for Wales under-20s this summer was men against boys stuff at times. There is still room to grow, though.
Young added: “Distribution is always something for young players coming through and decision-making around when to run and when to pass. He’s certainly got all the tools in the toolbox but it’s just about pulling the right one out at the right time.
“I thought he was really comfortable [against Gloucester] whereas out in Italy he was biting in a little bit too much and he was drifting when he should have been straightening but we also shouldn’t forget that he’d been out for 12 months.”
Grady’s progress this year will be fascinating. Regular first-team rugby may be hard to come by with Rey Lee-Lo first choice in that No. 13 shirt but there will be the odd chance. The youngster has to be ready to take it. If he does, it could be a big year.
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