ANDY UREN is determined to prove why teammate Harry Randall is not the only Bristol scrumhalf worthy of being name-checked by England boss Eddie Jones.
Livewire pivot Randall shot to prominence last January when Jones revealed he had considered him for a shock Six Nations selection. However, local boy Uren started more topflight games for Bristol last season and is ready to make his own play for Test recognition.
“Obviously when Eddie Jones said what he did about Harry you think, ‘I wish that was me’, but the only way you can do that is to play well and get better,” Uren said,
“There’s no point moaning about it, I’ve just got to try and be the first-choice scrum-half at Bristol, play as many games as possible and then, hopefully, that might enable me to get into the England set-up.
“It was great for Harry, though, and me and him are pretty good mates. It’s cool having two scrumhalves aged 21 and 23 playing together and we’ll always help each other regardless of who is starting.”
After coming through Bristol’s academy, Uren, 23, views last season as a breakthrough Premiership campaign when he went toe-to-toe with some of the best No.9s and grew in confidence.
After last week signing a contract extension through to 2022, Uren said: “It was a massive season for me. I played 20 Premiership games, which is a lot more than I expected.
“It’s class going up against guys like Danny Care and Ben Youngs and my favourite was when we played Sale and Faf De Klerk was out there. He’d had such a good year with South Africa so it was pretty surreal.
“Just knowing I’m good enough to play in the Premiership now is a big thing for me because it’s such a big step up from the Championship.
You have to be so much more accurate in your kicking and passing. “I just want to keep bossing games and my passing has to be a bit quicker and I need to be fitter. Because we play such an expansive game at Bristol you can be knackered after 20 minutes so we’re working really hard on that just now.”
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