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Roberts handed armband as Wales call up 13 new faces for June Tests

Jamie Roberts

Jamie Roberts is to captain Wales for their June Tests against Tonga and Samoa, with interim head coach Robin McBryde including 13 new faces in his 32-man squad.

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With regular skipper Alun Wyn Jones among the Welsh contingent not available for selection due to their involvement with the British and Irish Lions, Harlequins centre Roberts will take over the role.

Roberts has 91 caps for his country and spoke of his pride at being made captain.

“I’m immensely honoured to be named captain of Wales for this year’s summer tour,” he said.

“It’s a proud moment for myself, but more importantly my family and a position of responsibility that I will take huge pride in.

“I’m excited for the new players in the squad as they get the chance to test themselves at this level, and also for the more established players who now have a chance to become leaders in this team.”

Roberts will lead a team made up largely of Test rookies, with Adam Beard, Seb Davies, Ryan Elias, Ollie Griffiths, Wyn Jones, Rory Thornton and Thomas Young among the new faces in the forwards.

In the backs, Aled Davies, Steff Evans, Keelan Giles, Owen Williams, Rhun Williams and Tomos Williams are all in contention to make their Test bows.

Wales face Tonga at Eden Park in Auckland on June 16th, before taking on Samoa in Apia a week later.

Watch the June Internationals streaming live on rugbypass.com, home of the best online rugby coverage including news, highlights, previews & reviews, live scores, and more!

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J
JW 1 hour ago
'They smelt it': Scott Robertson says Italy sensed All Blacks' vulnerability

Even the 20/30 cappers did too I reckon.


IDK, I think Jordan has a limited life span in this side unless he can develop more to his game. Like you go on to mention, I think theyres more important things to worry about than the effectiveness of someone's extra strings, or secondary components to their game.


Bash backs are Fosters thing, and to a large part they've made it work. Theyre now one of the best teams in the world.


They boy's trucked it up a bit against Italy in the redzone, and against France, wasn't that effective without the right players probably.


Try and take a look at it this way. Dissapointed Havili and Blackadder were in the side? Havili despite clearly shown that he can't do what the team needs at 12 was kept on for the RWC. Back goes down and he brings in Blackadder who doesn't play. Refuses to drop Christie when he should and look who starts this season. Beauden Barret not playing well enough to keep his 10 jersey but we gotta keep him in the side. Weve only got one 8, we stuff developing another I'll just play Ardie every game.


This years team wasn't burdened overly with injuries but they were in every position Razor might have wanted to try and development, severely limiting options. I'm not defending Razor as there was also plenty of other opportunity to make up for it and he was a little gunshy, but I'm also not going to overly criticise him because he chose cohesion over a black slate.

How long are we going to keep blaming All Black failings on Ian Foster.

I think more and more people are on board with it being time to try alternatives, but then again, how would they have reacted to a loss against Italy? 😉

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