In his latest BBC Sport column, Liam Williams reveals his despair at missing the England game, how he has been struggling to eat with a lip injury and why Wales are relishing being written off.

But I picked up a nasty lip injury against Georgia and it has ruled me out this weekend.

The incident itself was run of the mill. When I went to clean out a ruck, one of their players got pushed back over the ruck. As he went he landed on his hands and his feet went behind him. As he flicked his heels up and went to clear out, his boot caught me in the lip.

I didn’t know automatically that it was a bad one, it was just the shock of it initially.

I felt my lip, looked down and there was blood everywhere. Thankfully John Miles, one of our medical guys, was on the touchline. I turned towards him and he recognised it was a bad one and told me I would need to go and have some stitches and that’s when I went off.

The shock was I thought I had taken a whack in the teeth, but thankfully my gumshield saved them. I have worn one almost since the start of my career.

I did not wear one when I was playing amateur rugby, but as soon as I was playing against the big boys for Llanelli in the Welsh Premiership, I started to wear one and I’m glad of that now.

I had 15 stitches in total and was fortunate I had expert medical care from the best around and I was straight on the medical bed with two local anaesthetics – 15 stitches straight in there and away you go.

I did ask them to take a photo and I have a couple of pictures that I have sent around to my close friends and family.

At the time I did not think that would rule me out against England. After the game, I did struggle to eat, but because of the local anaesthetic I did not feel anything over the next couple of hours.

The next morning my lip was huge and I could only eat through the right-hand side of my mouth and that is the same now. Trying to get stuff in is the worst – I have to tilt my head and put food and drink into the side.

Sleeping has also been tricky. I have woken up twice and my lips have been stuck together from a bit of weeping and blood. So that’s not ideal.

I have had some stick from the boys, but they also saw my lip at the beginning of the week and it looked terrible. I have a modelling career to look after as well!

It has healed reasonably well but, speaking to the coaches, if I have another bang on it, there is a 99% chance it will split open again and I would be back to square one.

I could have a knock on it in the first minute and leave the team in trouble. So we made a call, as tough as it was, to say I was not quite ready.

It is different with a head cut because you can strap that up or use a head guard. You can’t strap this up because I would not be able to speak! So it’s a bit awkward.

Thursday morning I expressed my concerns, which was so tough because you desperately want to play, and we made the call.

The team is the most important thing and I hopefully can be back next weekend, as long as the swelling goes down.

I’ll be shouting at the TV

So instead I will be watching the game at home and will be shouting at the television, just like every Welsh rugby fan.

It would be huge for Wales to win this weekend. We have a lost a few games over the past few months, so to beat a top team such as England would be massive and give us a lot of confidence.

The build-up to Wales v England is always slightly different. Under Warren Gatland, there was always a lot of hype during the week. This is a bit more chilled this week and the boys are just concentrating on our game.

We know what they are going to bring and they have not changed the game plan much and they kick a lot.

It’s going to be a good battle. They are on a good run and have been playing some decent rugby and we haven’t.

I know some of the Saracens boys such as Owen Farrell, Jamie George, Maro Itoje, Elliot Daly and the Vunipola brothers.

They are all really good blokes and I spent a lot of time with them up in London. Playing in the same team as them was a pleasure. I learned a lot from them.

The mood in camp is good off the back of a win last weekend. On the subject of people not giving us a chance, we don’t mind being the underdogs.

At the 2019 Six Nations, nobody really gave us a chance for the game in Cardiff against England, and we went on to win the Grand Slam. So we are pretty happy being written off by people outside the camp.

Some of the Wales players went well against Georgia and have been rewarded with selection again. The intensity will go up and some of the players will be going through some dark places during the game. Hopefully they will go all right.

We will wait to see what other results are before we find out who we play next weekend. One of those other games is France versus Italy in Paris, which will be refereed by Nigel Owens.

He will be refereeing his 100th international and he has been at the top of his game for a few years now and officiated in some of the biggest matches.

I believe he is retiring from international rugby at the end of the season.

We have sometimes in the past seen him down here in the Vale because he has done his fitness here. He is a top bloke and congratulations to him.

Hopefully he will have a Wales win to celebrate as well to make his weekend extra special.