Wayne Pivac has praised Wales’ medical team for the ‘miraculous’ recoveries made by Dan Biggar and Dillon Lewis this week.
The Wales boss also lauded the tight-head’s pain threshold, claiming you’d have to ‘shoot him with an elephant gun’ to stop him taking the field.
The Cardiff prop has become a key figure on Wales’ tour of South Africa after injuries to Tomas Francis and Leon Brown. But when he left the Free State Stadium in a sling following last week’s 13-12 victory, the signs were not promising.
READ MORE: Wales team news v South Africa as Biggar and Lewis both passed fit to start
But Lewis, who played against Fiji last autumn after rupturing the plantar fascia in both feet ( You can read all about that here ), has once again shown remarkable durability to be named in the starting side for Saturday’s decider against the Boks.
“I think you’d have to shoot Dillon Lewis with an elephant gun [to keep him down],” laughed Pivac. “He’s ruptured his plantar fascia and played a Test match for us. That takes a lot of guts.
“His pain threshold is obviously right up there. He hyper-extended his elbow and he was in a lot of pain, obviously, after the game.
“The main thing was that we thought he’d done a lot of damage in there. But after scanning it, 24 hours he was a lot better and it was the care and attention that the medical staff paid to him over the first 48 hours that has allowed him to be where he is now.
“We’ve got an excellent medical team. They do a fantastic job and they don’t get enough credit a lot of the time.
“To have those two players available, given the way they were after the game last week, has been a miraculous turnaround.”
Pivac added: “They are two key players for us. I’ve got to say the medical team has done a fantastic job. They had a light part of the week but trained today and came through that well, so very pleased.”
Wales left Bloemfontein battered and bruised and have had a lighter training week in Cape Town in a bid to freshen up the players ahead of their final game of the season. Pivac has gone with consistency of selection, naming the same side that started the first Test in Pretoria, reverting the change from the second Test that saw Alex Cuthbert come in for Josh Adams.
What do you think of the team? Have your say in the comments below and chat to rugby writers Matthew Southcombe and Ben James throughout the day
It means skipper Biggar is named in the run-on side, despite suffering a ‘squashed AC joint’ in the second clash.
“I’m all right,” he smiled at a press conference on Thursday. “I managed to get through training this morning which was the last little hurdle. I’ve been managed well all week and the medics have been brilliant. I feel pretty good and confident in taking to the field on Saturday.
“There has been a lot of time spent in the physio room, a lot of time recovering, and I think just mentally taking a couple of days to switch off from a tough game and enjoying a few days to relax physically and mentally.
“There hasn’t been a huge amount of training. There have been a few dinged-up bodies around the place and it’s a case of us getting ourselves right for Saturday now.”
Asked if he feared the worst last Saturday, he added: “Yes and no. I didn’t feel as if it was ever a dislocation or anything like that. I knew it was a pretty heavy contact so it was a case of whether it would settle down in time. Fingers crossed it looks like it’s pretty good.”
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