Williams hails lethal Lions
The Lions completed a memorable double over French giants Montferrand on Friday night with a hard-fought 12-9 victory at Donnybrook less than a week after scoring their first win on French soil in upsetting their Pool Four rivals 23- 20 at the Parc des Sports Marcel-Michelin.
That is a sign, the Australian believes, that his players are developing into a force to be reckoned with in European club rugby.
"This team's really maturing," Williams said. "We spent a couple of years putting this team together and they've made a lot of mistakes in the past and blown opportunities when they were younger.
"But if I could sign that backline on five-year contracts there is only one of those guys going to be over 30 when it ends. People forget it's a very, very young team. A couple of our forwards are getting into their 30s but the average of that team is 25, so it's still got a lot of years left in it.
"It's a wonderful platform and they're a really tight bunch of guys. You can see the spirit in that side and you don't play the last two games we've played without having a lot of spirit. There were some courageous acts out there on Friday night.
"Big Eric (Miller) had a bad blow in the warm-up and Girvan Dempsey took a couple in the game. They're tough guys in this side and, as I say, the thing is they are maturing."
Williams has been particularly pleased with the way scrum-half Brian O'Meara has developed since joining Leinster, having lost out in the battle of the number nines in Declan Kidney's Munster squad to Peter Stringer and Tom Tierney.
It was O'Meara's confident kicking display that steered Leinster to victory at Donnybrook on Friday night, converting four of his six penalties to deliver all his side's points as the home side kept its discipline to restrict Montferrand's France outhalf Gerald Merceron to just three penalties.
Williams said: "We've done so much work on goal-kicking at Leinster with Mick Byrne, our goalkicking coach, who flew in for Friday night's match. No one wins this competition without kicking above 80% and that's no accident with us.
"Bomber (O'Meara), to his credit, has made himself a very, very valuable player to this team by kicking his goals. Our Brian might be lacking a few things but self-confidence is not one of them.
"He's a very competitive little individual from Cork and a real pro.
"He's moved city after being written off in places and come up here. I've got great respect for him.
"I thought he was our man of the match in Montferrand last week and while he didn't have quite as happy a game on Friday night he missed a couple of tackles I thought he played very well again."
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