George Williams treats praise like he treats lightweight Melbourne Storm attackers: picking up both and respectfully slamming them back down to earth.
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The Canberra Raiders halfback has been showered in compliments since his starring role in the NRL restart last weekend, guiding the Green Machine to a convincing win against the Storm.
His try assists and thumping defence caught the eye of everyone outside of the capital, Brad Fittler hailing Williams as "flawless" and Sydney journalists keen to pick his brain via Zoom on Tuesday.
But Williams knocked them all back just like he did to Ryan Papenhuyzen, adamant he's barely scratched the surface after his three-game NRL initiation.
"It was only my third game, I'm not getting carried away," Williams said through a thick northern English accent. "I enjoyed it. I had a few nice touches but you guys probably won't see that I missed a few tackles as well. That's what I want to improve on.
"It was one good game. I've got to back it up now ... I got a bit lucky with the [Papenhuyzen hit] and luckily it looked good. I'm not the biggest bloke so I've got to give it a good crack. I've played one good game and everyone's over the moon about it but I've got to back it up now."
Williams' attitude mirrors that of the Raiders, who are refusing to believe the round-three hype about their premiership credentials.
Some have installed them as the runaway favourites to end a premiership drought after beating the Storm, New Zealand Warriors and Gold Coast Titans in a stretched-out opening to the season.
If they beat the Newcastle Knights in Campbelltown this week, it will be just the fourth time they've won the first four games of a season in the club's history.
Coach Ricky Stuart has made just one change to the winning formula, returning Bailey Simonsson to the starting side after a leg infection ruled him out of last weekend. Jordan Rapana moves to the bench.
"[Favouritism] isn't something we look at," said back-rower Elliott Whitehead. "We've got Newcastle this week and they've started the season great. All of our focus is on that, we won't listen to the outside noise because we could lose the next two games and you'd all be saying we were shit. It's something [Stuart] speaks to us about, keeping our heads down. We've got a lot of improvement left in us, so we'll be focusing on trying to do that this week."
Whitehead made sure Williams' feet were on the ground, too, when asked about if he was surprised by the halfback's hit on Papenhuyzen. "Yeah, because I run over him every day at training so it was a bit of a shock," Whitehead grinned.