Wayne Pivac has named an intriguing 33-man squad to face South Africa this summer, making a number of big calls.
Among them is the decision to drop the in-form Jac Morgan and Jonathan Davies from the squad, and retain Dan Biggar as captain, despite Alun Wyn Jones' presence in the squad.
The Wales boss has named two uncapped players in his squad in the form of James Ratti and Tommy Reffell.
He sat down with the media after naming his chosen 33 to explain his decisions...
READ MORE: Pivac tells Jac Morgan he needs to be bigger and stronger after dropping him
Question: People thought there might be more of a refresh of the squad – is this a more cautious approach?
Wayne Pivac: There is a bit of a refresh with the likes of George North coming back in. There are some players that have been out of the game for a little bit of time that are pretty near. We looked long and hard at the performances in the Six Nations and we’ve got the World Cup in mind, which is now only 15 or 16 months away.
There is a bit of looking ahead to the big stage of the Rugby World Cup, we’ve invested a lot of time in players over the last few years. It’s a juggling act of who we think deserves to be there on form and also thinking ahead to what we’ll need at the World Cup. It’s a combination of things.
There are some players clearly unavailable through injuries as well.
Q: How ready is George North, particularly on those hard pitches against the World Champions?
WP: Yeah like a number of players who have sustained injury, we’ve still got a good number of weeks together in camp. The boys will be worked really hard there and George has got another opportunity [for the Ospreys] this weekend.
We believe the strength and conditioning team, and the medical team, will have these guys ready to go. They’ve been canvassed across the selection process.
Q: Is this the end for Jonathan Davies?
WP: No, I’ve had a good chat with Jonathan. He was unavailable through injury when we first came in after the last World Cup. He’s had some big injuries in his career and he’s come back each time, worked very hard to get back into the squad.
We had a chat around him having a big off-season now with next season being a huge one for everybody, obviously. We wanted to bring George [North] back in. We explained that Nick Tompkins is playing well and Owen Watkin did a very good job in the Six Nations, particularly defensively.
So it was really an opportunity to have a look at Johnny Williams, who is back from injury. We know pretty much everything we need to know about Jonathan. It’s a case of him getting himself ready to go for a big start to next season to push for the autumn and beyond.
Q: So it would be wrong to write him off?
WP: We certainly haven’t written him off and that’s what I’ve told him. He knows that form will be really important at the start of next season leading into those first internationals.
Q: Could you talk about the uncapped players?
WP: James [Ratti] we had a good look at during the Six Nations. He’s a young guy that worked very hard, who applied himself and did everything we asked him to do. He just didn’t get the opportunity because we didn’t think he was quite ready then.
With injury and some form that he’s shown in recent weeks, we believe he deserves an opportunity. You’ll see we’ve picked two sevens, two eights and two sixes.
Q: Why does Jac Morgan suddenly find himself out of the squad?
WP: I had a good chat with Jac about what we want him to do in the off-season and that’s a big work-on in terms of what he can do in the strength and conditioning area.
The game’s a really physical game. Where we’re going, South Africa, there are a lot of very big men. We’ve asked him to improve, if he can, in that area of physicality when he’s over the ball, being even stronger than he is.
He’ll go away and work hard at his game, I know that. He’s a young guy and he’s desperate to get back into the side. It’s all ahead of him.
Tommy Reffell is someone that we spoke about before the Six Nations and it was touch and go. We went with the local boys for the obvious reasons that have been mentioned previously. But he’s now been in form week in and week out, in a pretty tough competition and a team that’s playing well.
He’s full of confidence and we think that now is the right time to put him into the squad and see how he goes at this level.
Q: Alun Wyn Jones is in the squad but isn’t captain, could you just explain the thinking there?
WP: We’ve said it before, whenever you write Al off he comes back to prove people wrong. He hasn’t had a lot of rugby and we had a good conversation around the topic.
Al is a leader by the way he trains and performs on the park, he has done that for many years. We don’t expect that to change. He’ll come in focussed on his role, playing to the best of his ability and then we’ll go from there in terms of selection and see how the four second rows shape up.
In terms of Dan, we felt he did a good job and those guys have played many Test matches together. They’ll share the role, no doubt, throughout training and the working week.
Q: Would you like Alun Wyn Jones to play all three Tests?
WP: The perfect world would be every player putting their best foot forward, being available with no injuries in camp, solid training weeks, everybody putting their hands up, and giving us tough decisions across all positions.
That’s what we’d like. We haven’t had that throughout a number of factors but certainly that’s what we’ll be looking to achieve moving forward.
Q: Is the decision over the captaincy an indication that you're managing Alun Wyn through to France?
WP: There are many senior players in the group who we will be looking to manage, and that’s working with the clubs not just in our environment.
Al has played three games since the Italy game so he hasn’t had a lot of rugby. He’s had an illness thrown in there as well.
He’s a little bit underdone so he’s got six weeks or thereabouts to work hard, and get back into the shape that he knows he can get into and we know he can get into.
I’m sure there’ll be some interesting training sessions ahead.
Q: Has the pressure on the squad intensified after the Italy defeat?
WP: Yes, and as you would expect the most pressure for us, and we say this as coaches all the time, comes from within.
We’ve had some robust discussions as a coaching group. We let the dust settle a bit because emotions were running pretty high right throughout the country, and rightly so because that’s a result that nobody is proud of.
We didn’t expect that, and we have to take it on the chin. The big thing is we had those robust discussions, we’ll learn as much as we can from the experience, and hopefully it makes us a better side moving forward.
Certainly that’s the attitude we are taking. But yes it was a tough period of time I have to say especially for everyone concerned.
What we want to do is turn that frustration, that emotion if you like, into the hard work that’s required going to a place like South Africa.
Q: Did the criticism after that game hurt?
WP: No, personal criticism doesn’t hurt because it’s a job you know where everybody is watching your every move. When you take these positions on you know there’s a responsibility that goes with it.
Certainly a loss to Italy was something that wasn’t in my thought process to be honest without sounding arrogant. I believed we were good enough, we’d done enough work, and we should have won that game.
We could have won that game several times over. The fact is we didn’t so you take what comes with that, and a lot of it is justified.
Q: What are your views on the debate that's raging over the regional game at the moment?
WP: I think it needs to be on the agenda. I think the right people are dealing with it, and decisions for the future of the game are really important.
It’s not something that you want to deal with with a knee jerk reaction to certain results but the way we’ve been going at club level, and some of our results at international level it needs to be looked at seriously.
I think they are doing the right thing by having a look at it. What the outcome is I don’t know at this stage.
Q: Will Josh Adams be fit for the first Test?
WP: Yes. He’s in good shape. From the club update about a week ago, he’s out running, he’s running well, and our medical team have had the handover from the Cardiff medical team.
He’ll be in the running with us from day one, and we expect him to be in full training, and available for the first test.
Q: Same question regarding Will Rowlands?
WP: Yes, he’s recovering really well. I did hear out of the Dragons maybe even this weekend. That suggests to me he’ll be right for the camp and fine for the first test.
Q: This is the smallest Wales squad you've ever named, is there any significance in that?
WP: It’s the second largest squad to leave these shores on a summer tour. I think up until the NZ tour where they threw the Chiefs game in. There was an extra game so they took a few more players than we are taking but it’s been 31 up to that point.
From our point of view 33 replicates the Rugby World Cup so it’s good preparation for our coaching group, our management group to work with that number away from home.
