I'm on track as Ashes series draws nearer - Williams

In his BBC Sport column, England captain George Williams talks about his recovery from injury and the growing anticipation of finally facing a touring Australia side on home soil.

It is less than a month until England run out at Wembley to face Australia in the Ashes series since 2003, and I'm so glad it's nearly upon us.

We've been waiting that long now. It's been in the pipeline for a long time so it's exciting.

Everyone's the same: The fans, the players, the coaches, the media.

We've had chances as a team to get together. We've had two meet-ups in the past five weeks, so we've been among each other a fair bit.

We've got the two sold-out stadiums in Everton and Leeds, and Wembley as well. These are the games we've been waiting for. It's been 20-odd years since we had a proper Ashes tour.

Shaun Wane has got us prepared and ready and we know what's needed in this country for the game to grow and for us to win the series.

Shaun can be really serious but he has a good balance of having a laugh. Chris Barron, or Bubble as he's known, adds to that - he's the head of strength and conditioning but also the team joker.

He does the quizzes for the lads in the evening, and he'll dress up in daft gear.

Bubble's great for the team and I'm sure he'll have something up his sleeve for us.

• Australia to tour England for first time since 2003

'I had to get myself right' - on road to recovery

My preparation for the series has been slightly affected, as I had to miss the end of Warrington's season.

I had a small nerve issue. We play injured all the time, but I had to get myself right, which meant avoiding contact, and it's getting better and stronger every day.

We had to let it settle. I've been doing things in rehab and testing where it's at with movement, along with the rest I needed.

'We know we're playing against the best'

The Australians have a new coach for the series in Kevin Walters.

He took Brisbane to a Grand Final a couple of years ago so he's obviously a great coach - but with no disrespect to him, I think Australia would be good whoever the coach was and whoever was coming over in that team.

We know we're playing against the best. They deserve that title because they have been the best for a long, long time.

Now for us, it's about showing that we're heading in the right direction. To beat the best would be a good indication of that.

I've been keeping an eye on the NRL to see how the Australians are going, with the Ashes in mind.

I watch a lot of the games to be honest, though I don't think the missus is too happy about it. I'm watching Super League, then watching NRL and there's the football in between.

I have a few mates playing over in the NRL - there are the English lads out there, such as Herbie Farnworth and Morgan Smithies.

We know what we're up against. The Australians could probably name three or four different teams of quality players, so whatever we come across we've got to be ready.

'We were disappointed with Warrington's finish to season'

It wasn't the end to the season that any of us wanted at Warrington. We were all disappointed with how it finished up.

I think the Challenge Cup final really hurt us emotionally, to lose in the manner that we did.

It was a sickener. It's so difficult to take. You'd almost rather lose 40-0 than come so close as we did.

Then we were so inconsistent throughout the year. We had some injuries, we lost some key players for long periods. We lost Matty Ashton for the season, Danny Walker was out for 16 weeks and I was out for six or seven.

I could name 10 or 11 players who we missed, though I know other teams had that too at times.

We lost some of the connection within the group. We were changing the side week to week and could never really get going again. Momentum is a massive thing in sport and we didn't have any.

We didn't have any confidence come the back end and I think it really showed.

Hopefully we can banish those memories, start again, we'll have a tough preseason after the year we've had and get back to work again.

One of the major positives has been that some of the young players within the group, such as Ewan Irwin and Cai Taylor-Wray, got a chance to play and gain experience.

They're not going to be ready and be superstars straight away - but they've experienced a couple of games this year, they might get 10 or 15 next year and then before you know it they'll be Super League players.

They are getting to experience the different pace and physicality of Super League.

The club has high hopes for them and there might be a few more. We've just won the academy Grand Final - so there'll be a few more trying to push through.