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Late withdrawal forces Wales to rejig their backline

By PA
Leigh Halfpenny /PA

Leigh Halfpenny was ruled out of Wales’ Autumn Nations Series opener against New Zealand less than 90 minutes before kick-off at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff.

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The British and Irish Lions full-back was withdrawn after aggravating his hamstring playing for the Scarlets.

Gareth Anscombe was switched to full-back, with Rhys Priestland starting at fly-half and Sam Costelow joining the replacements.

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Halfpenny has not played for Wales since suffering a major knee injury in his 100th international against Canada in July 2021.

A WRU statement reads: “Leigh Halfpenny has been withdrawn from the Wales starting XV following an aggravation of his hamstring injury sustained on club duty.

“Gareth Anscombe moves to fullback and Rhys Priestland will start at fly half.

“Sam Costelow joins the Wales replacements wearing number 22.”

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J
JW 4 hours ago
'Let's not sugarcoat it': Former All Black's urgent call to protect eligibility rules

Yep, no one knows what will happen. Thing is I think (this is me arguing a point here not a random debate with this one) they're better off trialing it now in a controlled environment than waiting to open it up in a knee jerk style reaction to a crumbling organtization and team. They can always stop it again.


The principle idea is that why would players leave just because the door is ajar?


BBBR decides to go but is not good enough to retain the jersey after doing it. NZ no longer need to do what I suggest by paying him to get back upto speed. That is solely a concept of a body that needs to do what I call pick and stick wth players. NZR can't hold onto everyone so they have to choose their BBBRs and if that player comes back from a sabbatical under par it's a priority to get him upto speed as fast as possible because half of his competition has been let go overseas because they can't hold onto them all. Changing eligibility removes that dilemma, if a BBBR isn't playing well you can be assured that someone else is (well the idea is that you can be more assured than if you only selected from domestic players).


So if someone decides they want to go overseas, they better do it with an org than is going to help improve them, otherwise theyre still basically as ineligible as if they would have been scorning a NZ Super side that would have given them the best chance to be an All Black.

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