“We just need to find that balance,” said Warren Gatland, by way of explanation after the voluntary jettisoning for this weekend’s Test against Scotland of three of his most trusted lieutenants for three of his most promising youngsters. In so doing, he replaces 360 caps’ worth of experience with 10, or a depletion of a shade under 117 caps per player. Less a balancing act, more a wild seesaw.
That said, the theory is compelling. For Alun Wyn Jones (168 international caps), Taulupe Faletau (101) and Justin Tipuric (91) come Dafydd Jenkins (two), Christ Tshiunza (three) and Tommy Reffell (five). The incomers bring all the vibrancy and chutzpah one might expect of youth, not to mention the athleticism. All three ply their trade the other side of the bridge in England. Jenkins and Tshiunza are at Exeter, both the Chiefs and the university; Reffell is at Leicester, just the Tigers.
The latter made an impact off the bench last week, in place of Tipuric. But Reffell, 24 in April, is practically a veteran compared to the other two.
People are already describing Jenkins as a captain in waiting. He became the youngest player to have captained a Premiership team when he led Exeter against London Irish in November at the age of 19, a week before he made his Test debut in the defeat by Georgia.
Wales still have oodles of experience in their lineup, much of it in the form of the captain, Ken Owens, but the relevant players will not be around for a whole lot longer. If Jenkins were to be lobbed the captaincy by Gatland in another attempt to find some sort of balance this Six Nations he would become Wales’s youngest, ahead of Gareth Edwards. If not Jenkins has another two years and more to become second youngest, ahead of Sam Warburton.
Fair enough, we might be getting ahead of ourselves. Suffice it to say, there is excitement in the air. As for Tshiunza, the galloping lock-cum-flanker-cum-just-get-him-in-the-team-somewhere, excitement hardly does his prospects justice. He will line up in the No 6 shirt, but he sees himself as a sort of hybrid of Jones, Maro Itoje and Courtney Lawes. Quite a player then – and a good deal faster than any of them.
Gatland makes two further changes in the front row, another 68 caps falling away in the shape of Tomas Francis, this through injury, but Dillon Lewis’s 46 is adequate compensation at tighthead. On the other side of the scrum, Wyn Jones’s inclusion ahead of Gareth Thomas claws back 28 caps from the cumulative deficit.
The backs are unchanged, which is reward for Wales’s few points of consolation from the dispiriting defeat in Cardiff by Ireland last weekend. Liam Williams’s performance at full-back was little more than confirmation of his enduring class, all 87 caps of it, but Rio Dyer (four) and Joe Hawkins (two) gave further glimpses of what Wales’s future might hold.
Next the kids will run into the cauldron of Murrayfield, newly stirred by the latest victory over hapless England. Gregor Townsend makes only one change, the return of Zander Fagerson from a hamstring injury sustained in December. Not even Hamish Watson, now recovered from a brain injury, can break into this squad, so anxious are Scotland not to disrupt the karma from a second consecutive victory at Twickenham after 38 years of hurt.
But Scotland’s ability to pull off such feats is not in doubt. Their consistency is. The more outrageous and brilliant the victory, the more likely they are to lose the next match. Scotland have not managed to win the opening two matches of a Six Nations since 1996. On each of the seven times they have beaten England since 1986, they have lost their next game, often with indignity.
So a lot rides on this for both teams. Townsend, something of a mercurial player in his own day, will do anything to stop the little details about Welsh inexperience from wheedling their way into his players’ heads. On paper there should be only one winner. But Wales’s kids might take some encouragement, too, from that vulnerability of Scotland after a big win.
One might even call it in the balance.
