Young Guns: London Irish centre Will Joseph
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Will Joseph admits following the career path of older brother Jonathan might not be the best thing, given the likelihood that he is always going to be compared to him.
However, if, like his brother, the former Newbury Blues, Berkshire and Millfield School youngster goes on to win 50-odd caps for England, tour with the British Lions and become renowned as one of the Premiership's foremost centres for over a decade, he'll live with it.
Hell, the 18-year-old even bears a striking resemblance to his older sibling, with Will smiling before saying: “A lot of people say that. I played all sports like tennis, football, rugby and cricket but rugby got a bit more serious after I went to Millfield so I thought I'd try to follow in Jonathan's footsteps.
“I played a bit of ten at school and wing because I was fast, but I've mainly been a centre and the No.13 jersey is probably the one for me. I'm similar to Jonathan in that respect and it's probably not a good thing because we'll always be compared, but we do have similar styles and when I was in the England U20s camp recently, Alan Dickens saw the similarities.”
Will added: “I try to be a good defensive communicator. You can have all the skillset but as a 13 you must always stay on top of your organisation and own the little things around that, because that's what makes the difference between an okay player and a good player.”
While Covid-19 scuppered Joseph's hopes of playing in last year's U18s Six Nations, he considers himself fortunate to have toured South Africa in 2019 and, having been fast-tracked into the England U20s squad a year early, he clearly has a bright future.
“I was in my lower sixth summer when I went on that South Africa tour and that's probably the proudest thing I've done in rugby,” Joseph said. “It was a real good learning curve for me and in many ways, it confirmed that rugby was the path I wanted to take.
“I've used it as motivation and since being at Irish, I've also had really good role models in guys like Curtis Rona, Terrence Hepetema and Tommy Homer, whilst coaches Declan Danaher, Jon Fisher and James Lightfoot-Brown were helpful in the academy.”
As well as his immediate ambitions with Irish and England U20s, Joseph aspires to reach the levels of some of the world's best. He added: “In the Premiership right now there are some great No.13s like Semi Radradra, but looking back to when I was younger watching the Six Nations, I always appreciated watching Brian O'Driscoll.
“The biggest one for me, though, was when I watched London Irish back in the day and they had Seilala Mapusua, Topsy Ojo and Delon Armitage. They were all really inspirational guys, but ‘Maps' was my favourite – he was an amazing player.”
