Warren Gatland made four changes to his Wales team for the match against Ireland on the opening weekend of the Six Nations.
In a nod towards the future and the 2019 World Cup, Gatland made significant alterations to the side that lost to South Africa at the quarter-final stages of last year’s tournament.
Gethin Jenkins was dropped to the bench and replaced by Rob Evans at loose-head prop.
Sam Warburton was moved from openside flanker to blindside with Dan Lydiate joining Jenkins among the replacements.
In the backs, Tom James was picked in the wing ahead of Alex Cuthbert, almost six years after James’ last international in 2010.
And Liam Williams was not risked after his recent foot injury so Gareth Anscombe starts at full-back.
Gatland explained his decisions by stating that form, fitness, and an eye towards the future had all influenced his selection.
Q: The one selection few of us saw coming was Rob Evans preferred to Gethin Jenkins at loose-head prop. Is that a changing of the guard in that position?
A: Possibly.
Q: How would you sum up Rob’s strengths?
A: He’s a young player of the future. He’s had a few caps now and we’ve been impressed with his form for the Scarlets. He’s scrummaging well. So he gets an opportunity. He has played well for us before and deserves a chance looking ahead to the next few years. We have a couple of loose-heads who have been around a long time and have given brilliant service, but how much longer they will be involved internationally, we are not too sure. We are giving Rob an opportunity looking forward to 2019.
Q: It’s remarkable for any player to go six years between international caps. What has Tom James down to transform himself back into a Test player?
A: If you look back at the history of it, he was in the Welsh goldfish bowl. He needed to get out, he went out to play for Exeter in the Premiership and had some excellent form there. I think he has grown up and matured fantastically well as a person and a player. He’s come back and his form for the Blues has been outstanding, so he has been selected on merit. He was unlucky not to involved at the World Cup due to injuries. His form has been excellent and he deserves his opportunity to come back into the Welsh team.
Q: You’ve decided not to include Liam Williams in the 23 after his comeback from injury for the Scarlets last weekend. What were your thoughts there?
A: We felt with his injury, during the World Cup he wasn’t quite as sharp as he needed to be. He needs a little bit more time. The strength of his game is his footwork, his timing on to the ball and how explosive he is. That’s what makes him special and we didn’t see that at the World Cup. He wasn’t quite ready in terms of the amount of training time that he’d had. He will do some conditioning and sharpening up this week and potentially be in contention for the following week. We had two of three players that hadn’t had much rugby and that was part of our decision. When you are playing international rugby you’ve got to be careful. Liam was one, Sam (Warburton) hasn’t had much rugby, Dan Lydiate hasn’t had any rugby at all. We didn’t want two loose forwards who haven’t played a lot of rugby going on to the field. Playing at this level, you ideally want players who have had some rugby behind them but are also sharp.
Q: You’ve gone for Gareth Anscombe at full-back. Does he give you different attributes to Liam?
A: Gareth has got some great vision. He’s come back from a long injury as well, so he’s had a few more games under his belt. It gives us a chance to play him at first receiver, having played a lot at 10. With not considering Liam, we have gone for a little bit more height in that back three because we expect Ireland to put a lot of balls in the air. We have got to be able to handle that threat.
Q: Dan Lydiate is restricted to a bench spot having been out since New Year’s Day. Was he fit to start?
A: Yes, he was absolutely. He wouldn’t have been on the bench if he couldn’t have started. But if he had started, that would have meant we would have had him and Sam, who haven’t had much rugby.
Q: Is it a case of looking for a different blend with Justin Tipuric in the back row?
A: Well they are different types of players. With Justin at 7 and Sam at 6, we will play a little bit of left and right. We are excited by the mix of the back-row which has played well together before. We know what a wonderful rugby player Justin is in terms of playing in those wide channels and hopefully the weather conditions might allow to play a bit of rugby. The long term forecast doesn’t look brilliant, so that may change our thinking and it may change the way Justin plays the game too. He may have to play a little bit tighter and be very much on the ball. He will be given the freedom to play a little bit more open, but that will depend on the weather conditions too.
Q: How do you reflect on your selection generally?
A: It’s quite an exciting team and hopefully people will be pretty happy with it. We have a very experienced bench and hopefully they will come on and make an impact. We have a lot of caps sitting there who can come on and do a job or finish a job for us.
Q: Ireland have a lot of injuries, as you did at the World Cup. Do you expect them to respond as well as you did in that tournament?
A: I suppose the template for them is the way they played against us two years ago when we went to the Aviva Stadium and they played us off the park in terms of driving well at lineout time. We were well beaten that day. They dominated territory and possession and we didn’t handle their kicking game. We are expecting the same again from them a little bit because it has been very successful, so we’ve got to make sure we handle that as a team. It’s going to be a physical game. They strangled us out of the match two years ago and played well and we have to rise to that challenge on Sunday.
Q: How do you assess the respective state of the two squads going into Sunday’s game?
A: We are comfortable where we are at the moment. We are comfortable with the time we have had together, we have got one or two key players coming back from injury and others not too far away. I think we are in a good place. But the greatest strength with the Irish is when they are written off and people disrespect their ability to play. We have got to be conscious of that and make sure we don’t do that. They have won the championship in the last two years and we respect them tremendously as a team. They are going to be particularly tough at home. For both teams, this opening game of the tournament is really important.
Q: Is there anything to fear out in Dublin?
A: I think there is always something to fear. There is always trepidation about the first game of the Six Nations. If you lose that, then you start looking long term, so there’s a lot of fear in all of us. There’s a lot of pressure in professional sport to perform and get results and we want to start this tournament well. We have sold out the three home games and we haven’t done that for a number of years. That’s fantastic for us and probably a reflection of how the Welsh public see the courageous performances we put up during the World Cup. We want to go out to performance and put on a good performance. It’s pretty much a little back like 2012 when we played them out there in the first game. If we can win, it will hopefully put us in a positive step for the rest of the tournament.
Q: The referee this weekend is Jerome Garces who was in charge of your two games against England last year and penalised you a fair bit at the scrum on both occasions. Does that have a bearing in the build up in terms of your scrum?
A: Yeah, I think it was part of the conscious decision in terms of that selection. But I thought he was one of the best referees in the World Cup.The way he refereed the breakdown was outstanding and he’s definitely not afraid to referee an upset as well, which is pleasing to see. He was in charge of the South Africa-Japan game at the World Cup, as well as Ireland-Argentina and us against England. Someone said that out of his last six Six Nations matches, five away teams have won. I think he just referees what’s in front of him. We were very pleased with the way he handled the breakdown during the World Cup and his control in that area. He did penalise us a few times at scrum-time, but we were very happy with his control of the game. At the moment, from the performances we have seen recently, him and Nigel are definitely the two top referees in world rugby.
Q: George North has said he hopes Wales’ style will suit him more than Northampton’s. What did you make of that?
A: I felt really sorry for the kid. It was a headline taken out of context really. He made a comment that he’s a bit frustrated about his form, that he hasn’t had many opportunities and hasn’t scored some tries. Sometimes you get excited about a change of environment and you look forward to that. People think he was criticising Northampton, he was probably being more critical of himself in terms of being disappointed in his own form and not scoring. A lot was made about a couple of comments about being excited being in the Wales camp and probably frustrated with his own form.