A front-line team of Wales selectors was out in force on Saturday evening, watching the final audition before Warren Gatland and his cohorts sat down to finalise their World Cup training squad before the announcement on Monday.
The squad is expected to involve around 45 players.
Forty-two were named in the 2019 training group, but squad sizes for the global tournament have gone up from 31 to 33, so, finances permitting, Gatland may pick a slightly bigger panel to prepare for this autumn’s event in France.
Choosing any more than 45 might smack of indecision, a very unGatland-like trait. There again, the New Zealander used 35 players over five games during the Six Nations as he tried to make sense of a situation where Test veterans and international new boys there were aplenty without too much in between.
He has had time to reflect on that campaign and also study recent regional form. Quite what he has made of it all will become evident when he runs through the details of his selection.
There were likely at least six questions he will have needed to answer at his final selection meeting before the announcement.
Should he call up Sam Costelow?
Writing of No. 10s, The Observer’s late columnist Alan Watkins once reckoned: “There are in England usually three or four players who are more or less up to the job, and the selectors cannot make up their minds whom to choose. In Wales, by contrast, a period of competition between two players or, alternatively, of cosmic confusion is succeeded by the emergence of one usually great outside half.”
We don’t know how much cosmic confusion there is in the Welsh fly-half debate these days. But how many No. 10s will Gatland name in his World Cup training group?
Dan Biggar, Owen Williams and Rhys Patchell were involved in the Six Nations, with Gareth Anscombe sidelined. The expectation is Anscombe will return to the set-up after his recovery from injury, Gatland being a long-time admirer of the Ospreys man. Owen Williams performed steadily during the Six Nations, while Patchell has struggled for starts at the Scarlets, with Sam Costelow holding down the shirt.
The Harlequins-bound Jarrod Evans offers something different from them all but he is ineligible for the World Cup under Welsh rugby’s 25-cap rule for players operating outside the country. Rhys Priestland is a superb game-controller, but we will assume that Biggar, Williams and Anscombe are well-placed for inclusion.
What of Costelow? He is still young but he has started to boss games and there were signs of increased maturity in the opening half against Glasgow Warriors on Saturday evening. One 50:22 was an outstanding moment and there was some good decision-making in front of Gatland.
Costelow has been on song in other games, too, winning the man-of-the-match award against Clermont Auvergne in the EPCR Challenge Cup quarter-finals after another assured display.
Is he ready to step back into the national squad environment after winning two caps off the bench in the autumn? If the 36-year-old Priestland is passed over, and Gatland opts to look at four fly-halves this summer, Costy, as the former Leicester Tiger is known, will be in the frame for a call.
How many opensides should be named?
Wales famously have serious depth at No. 7. Once, it was fly-half where Welsh youngsters wanted to play and make names for themselves. Today, it’s openside flanker.
Possibly, there may be the odd marauding breakaway playing for Aberflycentre who will feel a bit put out if he’s not in the training squad. But Gatland has to draw a line somewhere.
Justin Tipuric, Jac Morgan and Tommy Reffell were the opensides during the Six Nations and the expectation is all three will be named on Monday, assuming Tipuric and Morgan will recover in good time from the injuries which have laid them low of late. That doesn’t leave too much room for others.
Back in 2019, Wales named two specialist sevens in their training group in a pool of seven back rowers. Expect more this time.
Thomas Young, Taine Basham and Josh Macleod have all been performing strongly in recent weeks — Macleod made 15 tackles and pulled three turnovers out of the bag for the Scarlets against Glasgow, with Gatland watching, with Young and Basham star turns on Judgement Day. But, however you look at it, a good player or two is likely to be disappointed.
Should Morgan Morris be given a chance to impress?
If he’s not, the probability is the ‘Morris for Wales’ club will call an emergency meeting at which they will move a motion to march on the WRU’s headquarters in support of their man. There is not much more Morris can do.
He has had a stellar season which has seen him mop up three player-of-the-year gongs at the Ospreys awards night. He has scored tries, carried relentlessly, tackled prodigiously and achieved turnovers. And the modest 24-year-old is known to one and all as a team man.
His versatility — he can play across the back row — is a further string to his bow. He isn’t the biggest back rower and the certainty is Wales will factor that into the overall equation.
But he has been one of the top-performing Welsh players this season. On that basis, he at least deserves an opportunity this summer to show the selectors what he can do.
Who misses out at loosehead?
Again, it’s a training squad, not the actual squad which will be heading for France, but Wales have at least five players vying for places at openside and it’s far from sure they will take them all training this summer.
Gareth Thomas, Nicky Smith, Wyn Jones, Corey Domachowski and Rhys Carre make up the quintet.
Domachowski is untried at Test level, but he has been starting ahead of Carre for Cardiff and performing well. Carre himself has been making a mark off the bench.
Smith has been delivering for the Ospreys all season and Thomas has form behind him as well, while Jones is a player Gatland has favoured.
It’s going to be tight, then. A tough call may well have to be made.
What’s to be done about Joe Hawkins and Will Rowlands?
What indeed? Plenty has been written and said about Hawkins after his decision to join Exeter Chiefs.
The job for the WRU is to assess whether he signed for the Devon club before he won his first cap. If he did commit prior to the Chiefs prior to making his Wales debut, he apparently would be eligible to continue playing for his country.
But the grapevine suggests he still has work to do to convince the union on that front, with WalesOnline told just days ago evidence had yet to be forthcoming to back up any suggestion he committed to the Chiefs ahead of playing for Wales.
If he fails to convince the union on that front, the five-cap player will likely be declared ineligible under the selection rule on players operating outside Wales, who need to have 25 or more Test appearances on the board to keep playing for their country.
As for Rowlands, his first problem will be to show he is ready for a summer of vigorous training after the injury which has sidelined him since November. His next issue will be that he is two caps shy of the number he needs to keep playing for Wales under their selection criteria for exiles, with Rowlands joining Racing 92 from Dragons. Three warm-up Tests might give him the chance to reach 25, albeit the precise detail of his situation is sketchy, the same as Hawkins.
And Cory Hill and Jake Ball?
The pair are based in Japan: out of sight, perhaps, but maybe not out of mind.
Gatland has spoken about Hill and is a fan of what the lock or blindside brings on the pitch, installing him in Wales’ leadership team during the Kiwi’s first stint in charge.
The word is Hill has been playing well, captaining a side in Yohohama Canon Eagles which contains World Cup winner Faf de Klerk and Jesse Kriel. He is eligible for Wales, too, since the recent change in the selection criteria on exiled players.
Ball, meanwhile, had not had any contact from Wales earlier this month, so his prospects were felt to have receded. But let’s see how it plays out on both players.
READ NEXT:
Welsh rugby's best and worst signings this season as Young incredible and Wales star suffers
Welsh rugby season descends into farce as raft of matches forfeited
Wales Women reach new heights after five-try victory over Italy in Six Nations finale
