Owens has been one of the Northern Hemisphere’s finest hookers for the best part of a decade and has figured heavily on two British & Irish Lions tours. Elias has learnt a lot training day in day out with an 87-cap international, he has always struggled get a consistent run of games at both club and test level.
With injury having forced Owens out of Wales’ recent autumn campaign Elias started all four of their test matches against New Zealand, South Africa, Fiji, and Australia, respectively. And after a shaky start against the All Blacks the Carmarthen product put in three strong performances to finish the campaign as one of Wales’ best performers.
“Personally, I was happy with where I got to by the end of the autumn,” said the 26-year-old. “It was nice to have a run of games in the number two jersey, and I felt like I built on each game.
“I got some confidence, and it felt good. When it’s going well, you don’t get any plaudits for it and it’s not like I expect plaudits for it.
“But, at the same time, when it goes bad it’s easy enough for some of the commentators or someone that doesn’t know too much about the lineout and the intricacies of it – there are so many moving parts – to blame the hooker.
“I just want to kick on. I need a to keep stepping it up through the gears every game before the Six Nations.” Elias was hoping to build on his superb autumn form in the United Rugby Championship, and Champions Cup after returning to the Scarlets.
But after travelling to South Africa to face the Sharks and the Lions respectively, the Scarlets were forced to leave the Rainbow Nation as a matter of urgency after an outbreak of the omicron variant of covid-19. They were then forced to isolate for 10 days in Belfast which meant their Champions Cup clashes against Bristol and Bordeaux, along with their Boxing Day derby against Cardiff were postponed.
Prior to last weekend’s victory over the Ospreys the Scarlets hadn’t played a game since October, which was less than ideal for Elias who wanted to build on his recent exploits for Wales ahead of the Six Nations. “I was thinking coming off the back of my Wales campaign that I really wanted to build on it, and South Africa would be a good place to do that,” said the 23 times capped Wales international.
“We then flew to South Africa to face two big physical sides, and I just wanted to kick on and improve. But to go five or six weeks with no rugby has been tough.
“But after returning from isolation we have been able to work on improving our game at the Scarlets. I’d say defensively a lot of teams have had a lot of ins in and around the ruck against us so we’ve tightened a lot of that up.”
The latest surge of Coronavirus has led to many professional rugby games getting postponed at short notice, as the Scarlets have found out to their detriment. And Elias admits such uncertainty does affect his preparation in the lead up to a game.
“There’s a massive come down and anti-climax when games get called off after you’ve trained hard for it most of the week,” he said. “The best example was when our game against Cardiff on Boxing Day was postponed.
“On Christmas Day a message came through that the game was off which was a big anti-climax. I’ll always be mentally prepping for a game from the Wednesday onwards because as a hooker you want to wind yourself up and be physical.
“If you aren’t there mentally as a forward, you aren’t going to do it at the end of the day. I guess some guys will take it in their stride and it’ll be alright, but I find it tough to come back in with a positive mindset ready to train and prep for the next team.
“For us players we’ve spoken about it a lot. It’s about managing the risk and making smart decisions. You can’t go out and mix in public. We need to be smart, wear a mask, and keep our distance.
“We are making a conscious effort to stay safe because at the end of the day you pick up a positive case and then you aren’t playing on the weekend while it could also affect some of your teammates who are close contacts.
“It’s then seven days out. I don’t want to be stuck in the house for seven days because it was hard enough out in Belfast when we had to do the 10 days over there.”
