Williams returns to give Ospreys a lift

SHANE WILLIAMS has declared himself fit for Ospreys’ Magners League semi-final against Munster on Saturday.

The 34-year-old wing had been ruled out for the rest of the season after injuring the posterior cruciate ligament in his left knee during Wales’ Six Nations win over Ireland on March 12.

But Williams has made a speedy recovery and could be catapulted into the Ospreys team for the Thomond Park clash.

The return of Welsh rugby’s record try scorer will give the champions a much-needed lift in attack, after they failed to score a try in last weekend’s unconvincing win away to Aironi.

Ospreys head coach Sean Holley said: “He (Williams) is a one-off world-class performer and we could have done with his magic against Aironi because we never really looked like scoring a try.”

Turning to this weekend, Holley said Munster would have wanted to avoid the Ospreys in the last four — Saturday’s game will be the fifth meeting of the sides this season.

He added: “We know we can go to Thomond Park and win. I don’tsuppose Munster will want to play us but it makes for a great one-off game. For us, the shackles are off. We’ve felt a little bit of pressure in the last couple of weeks — we admit that — but now our season restarts.”

James Hook’s late penalty at Aironi earned the defending champions their place in the last four and the Perpignan-bound Wales star put the pressure on Munster by claiming they were justifiably favourites.

“We’ll go to Munster as underdogs and one positive is we can’t play much worse that we did (against Aironi),” Hook said. “We know Munster, it’s the fifth time we’ve played them this season, and they’ll know us pretty well.

“We’ve had some good battles with them in the past. It’s a semi-final, there’ll be a big crowd there and hopefully we can pick ourselves up.

“The Ospreys are my home region and I really want to win the leaguebefore moving on. We’ve got to go to Munster with a lot of belief and show them what we are as a team. We went to Leinster and won it last year as underdogs so we’ve got to believe in ourselves.”

Elsewhere, Newport Gwent Dragons have lodged a complaint to Celtic Rugby over what they believe was an “insulting” Magners League Dream Team selection. The Welsh region say the team, released last week, “fails to fully represent the competition”.

The Dragons, who had no representation in the selection, areincensed that their 20-year-old flanker Toby Faletau failed to receive anomination. The Rodney Paradeoutfit also highlighted the case of table-toppers Munster, for whom Ronan O’Gara was the only player included.

But a spokesperson for the Magners League said: “The votes were taken from a 19-strong panel, made up of our broadcast and media partners from all four countries, and we feel it was a fair process.”