Dewi Lake has received the Adam Jones seal of approval after his efforts on Wales’ recent tour of South Africa.
The legendary front rower hadn’t seen a lot of Lake beforehand, but the youngster caught his eye in the three-Test series.
“He seems a dynamic ball-carrier,” said Jones, capped 95 times by Wales before his Test retirement in 2015.
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“And I enjoyed his attitude. He wasn’t in awe of anyone. He got stuck in and didn’t back down. There were questions over the lineout at one point, but you can work at that. I just thought that he looked a good young player.”
The work-on for Lake, of course, as Jones points out, is his throwing.
It’s an area of his game that has improved over the past year, but the former back rower hit problems at several lineouts against the Springboks.
But the pluses of his game hugely outweigh the minuses.
In South Africa, he refused to be bullied, with Malcolm Marx not getting any change out of him as Lake met the challenge of arguably the world’s greatest hooker head-on.
He had shown in last term’s Six Nations he wasn’t going to be pushed around when he fought a running battle with England’s Jamie George, spiced by words from both sides which may or may not have been complimentary.
It went thus: England won a scrum penalty, prompting verbals and a nose-to-nose exchange; Lake then turned George over after a carry from the white-shirted No. 2; George then ran from the back of a lineout to shout something at Lake after a throw from Wales’ replacement hooker went wrong; the Welsh youngster then drove off the back of a maul with George among the reception part waiting to stop him.
By the end, Lake had made 24 metres from six carries in 12 minutes and proved himself a handful in every respect.
The former Wales U20s skipper is a leader who isn’t afraid to marshal more experienced players on the pitch and is seen by former Wales fly-half Jonathan Davies as potentially the next national captain. You can read about Davies' genius as a player here.
His first goal will be to start more often for Wales — he has featured in the run-on side just once, against Italy last term, when he was arguably his country’s top-performing player — but the selectors have been happy to use him as an impact player with the grafting and more experienced Ryan Elias on from the first whistle.
“Both hookers were good in South Africa,” said Jones.
“They were physical and able to manage the nuts and bolts of the scrum pretty well.
“There’s also Ken Owens. He isn’t young any more but he’ll still be going on for years and it’s brilliant for Wales to have him.”
The likes of Sam Parry, Elliot Dee and Bradley Roberts are also available to Wayne Pivac at hooker.
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