These are your rugby headlines on Wednesday, February 22, a pivotal day for Welsh rugby.
Grady set for first Wales cap
Mason Grady is set to win his first Wales cap against England, if the game goes ahead on Saturday.
Warren Gatland delayed naming his Wales team on Tuesday, but it's understood the 20-year-old centre will be involved at the Principality Stadium as long as a strike threat can be averted.
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Grady is thought to have impressed in training over the past few weeks and ticks a lot of the boxes Gatland likes in a player, with his sizeable 6ft 5ins, 17st 4lbs frame complemented by no little pass and skill.
Gatland is now due to name his side on Thursday, if Wednesday's decisive meetings between players and Welsh rugby bosses end in compromise. You can read the latest on that here.
D-Day for Welsh rugby
Welsh professional players will today meet with the Professional Rugby Board in a final effort to thrash out the contract dispute that is engulfing the game here.
Wednesday was the deadline set by the players for a resolution to be found to the current crisis, which is putting Wales' Six Nations clash with England on Saturday in serious jeopardy.
Head coach Warren Gatland revealed on Tuesday that the threat of strike action by the players was a genuine one, and despite the Kiwi being hopeful that a solution could be found before today's meeting, that appears to have failed.
READ MORE: Welsh rugby's 60-cap law set to be lowered to 25 as compromise reached amid strike threat
WalesOnline understands there has been a compromise reached over the 60-cap rule, which will now likely be reduced to 25, but the strike threat remains place. You can read about that here.
Gatland said yesterday he was confident the game will go ahead, adding: "Absolutely, yeah [I'm confident]. I'm hearing positive things from both sides. I'm confident that with the discussions taking place, that it will get resolved. There have been half a dozen meetings over the last few days or so."
Today's meeting is set to be the biggest one of them all.
Star's sobering statement
Cardiff star Dmitri Arhip says he doesn't know what the future holds for him after revealing his season is over through injury.
Like scores of players in Welsh rugby, Arhip is out of contract at the end of the current campaign and now finds himself in limbo amid the contracts freeze.
It follows on from the Dragons' Jack Dixon, who spoke out last week of the worries he had for his future with a young family to support before he himself was struck down by injury in the match against Leinster on Saturday night. That prompted an emotive interview from his team-mate Steff Hughes, which you can read more about here.
Now Arhip finds himself in the same boat as Dixon after damaging his Achilles against Benetton at the weekend.
Arhip wrote on Instagram: “I am very disappointed with the situation of rugby within Wales at the moment. In the 10 years that I’ve been playing within Wales, this is the most difficult season for me by far.
“In autumn, we were promised to start negotiations on our rugby contracts. It has been very difficult to focus on both training and gameplay without knowing our future and how we provide for our families, however the desire to play the game that I love was above all.
“Last weekend, against Benetton, I got an Achilles injury, now I have to have surgery on that injury and it’s quite a long road to full recovery.
“There are three months left before my contract expires and I don’t know what will happen next? I have received a lot of messages with support for that[,] my family and I are very grateful to everyone who has taken time to reach out, it means a lot.
“I am very disappointed that we are in this situation and the lack of movement and urgency across Welsh rugby. I wish all the Welsh players to finish this season without injury. For me, this season is regrettably over due to my injury on my Achilles.”
Would you support Welsh rugby players taking strike action amid contracts turmoil? Have your say here
Greenwood: I'd be staggered if game doesn't happen
England World Cup winner Will Greenwood says he'd be "staggered" if Wales v England doesn't take place, adding he feels Wales stars won't want to be known as "the player who walked out on your country".
Greenwood spoke from a position of experience, having being part of an England squad that went on strike in 2000 over pay. The pundit said the situation was now repeating itself more than two decades later but explained why he thinks there won't be strike action carried out.
"I'd be staggered if the game doesn't take place," Greenwood told Sky Sports. "I've come from a position of being part of an international team that went on strike, in 2000 for about three days. What needs to be mentioned is there is three people in this marriage. The unions, the regions and then the players who all discussing different components of the three prongs.
"The underlying sense from me and the reason we turned back up in camp at Pennyhill Park in 2000 48 hours before facing Argentina having walked out was the very real understanding that you'll always be remembered as the player who walked out on your country.
"We were striking over a paltry amount, we were striking over £250. We were also striking over a fixed part and a variable part, it is repeating itself 23 years later, players obviously wanting to have more fixed component to their wages so they can guarantee mortgages, bills and school fees or whatever it might be. They always feel once variable comes into it you are being attacked on your very basics.
"But back to my overriding answer to your question, will it take place? I just can't see this group of lads not turning up for a game that means so much to them and the supporters themselves who will currently be on their side, in terms of trying to find a fair and equitable way out of it, but public sentiment shifts very quickly when you don't turn up and sing a national anthem and play the big game of the season."
Tuilagi to miss Wales but back for Ireland
Manu Tuilagi will be available for England's final Guinness Six Nations match against Ireland after being given a reduced three-match ban for dangerous play, report the Press Association. Tuilagi was sent off for an elbow to the head of Tommy Freeman in Sale's Gallagher Premiership defeat at Northampton on Saturday.
A disciplinary hearing issued a four-game ban that will drop to three if he completes World Rugby's coaching intervention scheme. The length of the ban means he will miss England's fixtures against Wales on Saturday and France a fortnight later, but he will return in time for Ireland on March 18.
However, the powerful centre of Samoan heritage has not appeared in this Six Nations yet having slid down the pecking order under Steve Borthwick.
Owen Farrell, Ollie Lawrence, Joe Marchant and Henry Slade were the preferred midfield options against Scotland and Italy, with Tuilagi even unable to win a place on the bench.
The 31-year-old aimed to use his outing at Franklin's Gardens as the platform to impress Borthwick but his 14th-minute assault on Freeman has instead further reduced his chances of playing in this Six Nations.
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