George Williams column: England & Canberra half-back on the prospect of fatherhood and Raiders form

With the Rugby League World Cup taking place in England this autumn, and Australia's National Rugby League featuring some of the cream of English talent, England and Canberra half-back George Williams will be updating BBC Sport on life and rugby 'down under' throughout the 2021 season.

I've had another focus away from rugby league recently, and I've been given a different perspective on life, as my partner Charlotte is pregnant.

She's 19 weeks now. Obviously we couldn't tell anybody until 12 weeks, but we had a scan this week and a little girl is on the way, everything is healthy. It's really exciting.

Obviously, rugby league is my job and we put so much effort and time into that, most of my life has been to get where I am today, but this news has given me a different focus.

There's more to life than rugby league. It's opened my eyes. And, seeing the scans, it's unbelievable what the human body can do; seeing the baby's organs, the heart and the spine was all good. It feels pretty real now.

Everyone I speak to says it's the best thing in the world having kids. I'm a bit nervous as I'll have to learn on the run how to be a dad, but I'll do my best and me and my partner can't wait.

Raiders looking for the 80-minute performance

George Williams scored a try but Canberra were overhauled by the Cowboys in the second-half

As for matters on the pitch, Canberra Raiders just can't seem to put a second-half performance together, but we've been in it at half-time in all four games we've lost on the bounce.

As I said at the start of the season, Canberra was building for something pretty special, we've not really hit the ground running yet but the good thing is it's a long season and we just need to get back on the horse.

We're disappointed with how results have gone but if we put our heads down and don't believe, it's only going to get worse.

As hard as the reviews are when you lose, sometimes that's how you get better - to hear the hard truths and see the clips you don't want to see.

Obviously I missed the Souths game with an injury during the warm-up. It was more of a precaution than anything, didn't want to risk a tear and be out for longer.

Big personalities keeping the smiles up

Tom Starling's lively character has been good for the Raiders dressing room

Thankfully we've got a lot of good blokes around the club to make sure we're all still smiling. We've got a few jokers. Josh Hodgson likes a laugh, Tommy Starling too - must be something to do with the hookers, they're pretty funny.

Even 'Big Papa', Josh Papali'i always has a smile on his face so he's pretty easy to make you smile.

Tom's a big character, he might only be a little bloke and pretty young but he's probably the loudest. He's always cracking jokes or doing something to someone, and if the boys are down we'll get into a huddle and say - come on Tommy give us a joke. He's always got one.

He's good at telling stories too. He's a big personality in the team and everyone loves him. On the way back from Townsville, we were all a bit down after the loss, we had plenty of time to reflect but Tommy was being Tommy - daft as a brush.

Fiji friendly in place for England

Viliame Kikau is a threat for Penrith, and will be a big player for Fiji at the World Cup

England have announced a friendly with Fiji to prepare for the World Cup, and it's is a really good game to warm-up with.

They've got some really good players and quite a few in the NRL or Super League. They're improving and they had some good wins in 2019. They've got Viliame Kikau at the Panthers, Maika Sivo at Parramatta and we've got Semi Valemi at the Raiders - a good young winger.

We played Penrith the other week and tackling Kikau is pretty hard. He's 6ft 5in, he's fast, he's strong, he's got good feet, hand-off, offload. He's got all the attributes to be a world-class rugby league player.

He's in a great system at Penrith, he's reaping the rewards. Me and him had a push and shove during that game and I think there's only going to be one winner there.

Keeping in the loop

The Australian boys here had a call with England coach [Shaun] Waney the other day. He's had a training session with the squad over in England which obviously we can't get to so he set up a group call with all of us down here.

It was good to be kept in the loop. We were on the phone for a good hour.

There were the four Raiders boys, Luke Thompson [Bulldogs], Tom Burgess [Rabbitohs] and Herbie Farnworth [Broncos]. There's a good little crew on there.

George Williams was speaking to BBC Sport's Matt Newsum.