Rayer warns over Bassett exposure
London Welsh v Bedford Blues. wk 49.
BEDFORD Blues director of rugby Mike Rayer has warned young winger Josh Bassett not to get carried away after a sensational start to his Blues career, writes James Heneghan.
The 19-year-old is the top try scorer in the Championship this year and continued his sparkling form with a hat-trick against London Scottish recently.
Rayer said: “I think we’ve got to be careful with Josh.
“What I don’t want is for people to keep sticking microphones under his nose because the lad has got to keep his feet on the ground.
“He’s still got so much to learn but games like that won’t do him any harm.
“A lot of the work went into the tries, he did particularly well to finish the first one.
“The second was from a lineout and the third try was well finished.
“Credit where credit’s due, I thought he had another good, solid performance at the weekend and he’s progressing nicely.”
The Blues winger made his Bedford debut over a year ago and he hasn’t looked back since, scoring 16 tries this season, the most in the Championship.
Rayer continued: “I saw potential in him about 18 months ago, maybe longer ago than that.
“He had all the attributes at that stage when I saw him playing for the Colts of a modern winger.
“He was a good size and had pace. The kid has worked hard over the summer to change his body shape and he’s taking everything on board and moving forward.
“He’s got a huge task ahead of him to make the next step because he hasn’t been in the game long, but that could be a positive because he’s playing without fear and long may that continue.
“He’s got a long road ahead of him but the lads around him are helping him massively and giving him the opportunity to showcase his talents and the biggest plus is his consistency.
“He’s been training with the England U20s, he’s not part of the squad but he’s been helping with the preparations.”
Bedford forwards coach Martin Hynes said Bassett reminded him of a young Ben Cohen, adding: “Me and Matt Volland played with Ben at Northampton and what he was good at was running. He ran hard and used his natural ability to do the fantastic things he did.
“The problem with Ben was that he became over-coached and at the moment Josh is like a young Ben Cohen.
“He doesn’t think about it too much, he just runs but that isn’t good enough to kick-on because he’ll need to be a bit cleverer about how he does and what he does.
“He’s a good kid and hopefully he’ll kick-on and just keep getting better.
“It’ll be lovely if he got a bench or got a game with England U20 in the Six Nations because everyone fancies a run-out in the white shirt.”
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Weather for Bedford
Tuesday 29 May 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 12 C to 19 C
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