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Wales Online
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Ben James

Wales have two problem positions a week out from Pivac's announcement

A week out from Wales' squad announcement for their final autumn campaign before next year's World Cup, there are some selection dilemmas still remaining.

Scrum-half, as has often been the case, is a position where Wayne Pivac seems pretty settled on his cast list, but still a little fuzzy on who the leading man will be. As for full-back, injury to the first-choice has led ro the Wales coach scratching around for understudies.

Both could be fascinating storylines next week, and throughout the whole of next month. Starting with the latter, the full-back issue is one that seems likelier to come to a head sooner than the scrum-half debate.

READ MORE: Welsh rugby winners and losers as Scarlets fans restless and 17 games called off

With Liam Williams out of action, the question remains who will be Wales' full-back this autumn. The other long-term full-back option for the past decade, Leigh Halfpenny, is back after 15 months out of the game, so will he come back in to the mix?

You'd like to imagine he'd be given time to continue his progress back on the pitch at the Scarlets without Test rugby coming to call, but how often have we said that about Welsh players returning from injury? Ultimately, if they're fit, it's a results-based business and it's probably more likely than not he'll be involved if he's still fit come November.

In terms of other full-back options, Johnny McNicholl is likely the next cab off the rank. However, while it seems likely he'll make the squad, his last appearance in a Welsh jersey was a defeat to Italy in Cardiff and it's questionable how much credit he really has in the bank after that debacle.

Or they could even consider moving Josh Adams, a position Pivac is known to have asked Cardiff to try him in this season. He could well be the best option given that Wales are relatively blessed out wide.

Beyond that, you're probably looking at non-natural full-backs and players with little to no caps. Gareth Anscombe would be the front-runner in that former category, although a rib injury is currently keeping him out.

Rhys Priestland is another fly-half playing full-back in Williams' absence at the Arms Park. In the second category of inexperienced options, Tom Rogers and Ioan Nicholas have both started games at full-back for the Scarlets this season but are currently unavailable.

Michael Collins could be a contender, but he's been moved into midfield to accommodate Max Nagy in the Ospreys backline. Angus O'Brien has gone well at full-back for the Dragons.

The question is whether any of those have caught Pivac's eye. Odds are that the selection next Tuesday won't be out of left-field, but if there's a surprise selection - it could be here.

At the very least, we'll likely know how Wales are planning on combating Williams' absence when the squad is named.

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That's unlikely to be the case with scrum-half. You can name the contenders right now with a fair bit of confidence - Tomos Williams, Gareth Davies and Kieran Hardy.

However, nailing down the starter from those is a little more tricky. Often, Pivac has intimated that Cardiff's Williams is the preferred option, but that's rarely been the case in practise.

The jersey has largely bounced around during Pivac's run, until this year's Six Nations. He had a run of games then and all seemed well.

However, the jersey wasn't completely nailed down. Williams had been injured heading into the South Africa tour this summer, and while he was fit to provide replacement cover, Hardy was trusted with the jersey for all three Tests.

Yet, it's Davies who tends to start ahead of Hardy at the Scarlets, with all three not exactly hitting the greatest of heights so far this season. On club form alone, which isn't always a marker for Test selection, it feels like no one has truly put their hands up.

Who would you pick at full-back and scrum-half? Have your say in the comments below

As one journalist quipped in the press box on the back of John Cooney's man-of-the-match display for Ulster in Llanelli recently, 'Wales could do with a scrum-half like him'. He's someone who has struggled to break into the Irish set-up, with recent talk about him switching to Scotland.

In a way, that little piece of information makes the comment all the more interesting. The suggestion is someone who isn't capable of being Ireland's third-choice would jump ahead of what we've currently got.

That's debatable, of course, and all three have delivered on the Test stage - even if that isn't necessarily on a consistent basis. But the sense that we've three scrum-halves and no standout is a familiar one.

Both full-back and scrum-half are slightly different problems, but ones that will be addressed nonetheless. It will be fascinating to see how.

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