WILL Harries has been hailed as the new Shane Williams by Newport Gwent Dragons attack coach Darren Edwards.

The jet-propelled winger has seized his opportunity with the Dragons after patiently biding his time for the first half of the season since joining them last summer from Northampton, though he was on loan to Bedford as well.

He arrived as a Wales Sevens product but little was known about him outside Wales, for though Cardiff-born he went to Millfield School and then Loughbor-ough University before joining Northampton.

But he hankered after a return to Wales and the Dragons gave him that chance. After a slow start, partly due to the form of Aled Brew and Richard Fussell, Harries exploded on to the scene during the LV Cup competition.

He actually turned Ospreys and Wales magician Williams inside out and then really made people sit up and take notice with a dazzling two-try performance against Saracens in the notable victory at Vicarage Road.

That started him on a road which has resulted in eight tries from seven games, now forcing himself right into the running for a place in the summer internationals for Wales against South Africa and New Zealand.

Edwards, the new innovative backs coach with the Dragons, has no doubts about him. “He’s the new Shane Williams,” he exclaimed.

“There’s nobody who can beat someone one on one like Will, apart from Shane. He’s a very strong guy who does break the first tackle, he’s confident and he goes full out.

“Edinburgh did a job on us once out wide, but we’ve got a plan B when that happens and Will took it after we spoke at half-time, and it worked (the move where Harries burst straight through the middle and over the line for his hat-trick)”

At 23 Harries is ten years younger than Williams who, like his Dragons counterpart, didn’t make the big breakthrough from the outset.

But he has now gone on to score a phenomenal 51 tries in his 72 caps and has earned the IRB player of the year award, as well as becoming a national hero.

That’s a pretty hard act to follow and though Wales coach Warren Gatland has mentioned Harries in dispatches – and may soon do rather more than that – he remains non-commital.

“I’m just concentrating on the Dragons, we’ll see what happens after that,” he said. “It’s been good to have got a chance, that’s all I wanted when I came here. My ultimate goal is to play well for the Dragons, but my further goal is to get into the Welsh team.

“At half-time against Edinburgh we were told to just keep on doing the things we were doing, keep them under pressure. “The last try was a simple one straight off the training field which we’d been working on.

“All the coaching staff are analysing opposing teams and what they do, we are all working hard at it so that we know what’s coming in every game.

“I’m loving the fast tracks, I enjoy playing on them. Despite the injuries, we’ve got a good squad and when we had a yellow card against Edinburgh (prop Hugh Gustafson sin binned) we kept dogging it out and concentrated on not conceding any points.

“Though we knew we were in the Heineken Cup next season before the game, and it took the pressure off, we couldn’t be happy with just that because we’re a professional side and we want to go out there and play for a play-off place.”