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The 'definite highlight' Tipuric reaction being named Wales captain

By PA
(Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

Ospreys flanker Justin Tipuric will captain Wales in the Autumn Nations Series. The 33-year-old, who has won 86 caps, takes over from the injured Dan Biggar. Tipuric missed the whole of last season after suffering a shoulder injury during the British and Irish Lions’ South Africa tour warm-up Test against Japan in June 2021.

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Tipuric previously captained Wales against Uruguay during the 2019 World Cup in Japan. “I am honoured,” he said. “I didn’t quite expect it, to be honest. I was just happy to get back in the squad. To have the responsibility of leading such a great bunch of boys out on the field is something that is a definite highlight of your career. It’s very exciting to be back to play at the stadium.

“You take it for granted but when you are out of the game for a while you look back and it shows how much I do miss it. It is one of the big things in rugby and something you want to make the most of, whether it is one more game or ten more minutes left to play there.”

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Tipuric’s Ospreys teammate Dewi Lake, meanwhile, has been ruled out of the autumn schedule due to a shoulder injury. The hooker was hurt during his team’s United Rugby Championship defeat against the Dragons on Sunday. Lake has been replaced in the 35-man squad by Dragons’ former Ulster forward Bradley Roberts.

Wales kick off their autumn schedule against New Zealand on November 5, with Lake the latest casualty. Head coach Wayne Pivac was already without Biggar, Liam Williams, Wyn Jones, Leon Brown, Seb Davies, Johnny Williams, Josh Navidi and Taine Basham because of injuries.

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Pivac has a number of other players who will require monitoring during the build-up to New Zealand’s Cardiff visit. That list includes George North (knee), Leigh Halfpenny (hamstring strain), Josh Adams (hand), Alex Cuthbert (shoulder) and Gareth Anscombe (ribs). Wales also face Argentina, Georgia and Australia during their autumn programme.

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1 Comment
f
finn 761 days ago

limited game time for reffel then I guess...

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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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