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William Ryder’s elastic brilliance puts him in a realm of his own.
Unharnessed pace is handy in sevens (think Varndell, Vunibaka, Cullen) but a truly great exponent has that extra intangible, that match winning panache - a natural ability to step.
Backwards, forwards, left, right. Goose, hitch, jink, spin - it’s all a blur for Willie. He blends a subconscious mastery of balance and timing with a twisted empathy for the limitations of his opposition, he understands their weaknesses, he sees it in the way they watch him, like weak gazelles ready to be picked off at will.
Willie fixes them in 1 split second, eyes on the obvious gap, and before they know it he is gone. The other way, through their legs, over their head? They seem not to know, because as soon the fix is in, Ryder is gone, elsewhere, in a different place, on another planet for all it matters. Word has it that he is due to make a sensational return to the sevens scene - we wait with with baited breath...
Check out his single handed destruction of South Africa:
Categories Sport Tags Sport rugby
By Moscow on 13/1/09
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