Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

Wales make 6 changes to face Scotland, give Lewis-Hughes a back row debut

(Photo by John Berry/Getty Images)

Wales captain Alun Wyn Jones will become rugby’s most capped international on Saturday when he makes his 149th Test appearance (140 for Wales, plus nine British and Irish Lions caps) in an XV showing six changes from last weekend’s loss to France in an autumn warm-up.

ADVERTISEMENT

Jones levelled the record last weekend but will take the honour for himself at Parc y Scarlets this weekend as Wales face Scotland in their re-arranged Guinness Six Nations finale.

At the other end of the international spectrum, Cardiff Blues back row Shane Lewis-Hughes will make his first Test appearance for Wales in a back row alongside experienced Lions duo Justin Tipuric and Taulupe Faletau. He steps in for Aaron Wainwright.

Video Spacer

Ex-Wales boss Warren Gatland guess on All Access, the RugbyPass interview show

Video Spacer

Ex-Wales boss Warren Gatland guess on All Access, the RugbyPass interview show

Will Rowlands, fresh from the English Premiership Final with Wasps, comes into the side to make his first start for Wales and he packs down alongside captain Jones in place of the benched Cory Hill.

European champion and English Premiership winner Tomas Francis comes into the front row alongside Rhys Carre and Ryan Elias in place of Samson Lee.

In the backline, Gareth Davies partners Dan Biggar following an injury to Rhys Webb, with Owen Watkin coming into the midfield alongside Jonathan Davies in place of Nick Tompkins. Liam Williams returns to the back three, taking over from George North to feature alongside Josh Adams and Leigh Halfpenny.

On the bench, Sam Parry, Wyn Jones and Dillon Lewis provide the front row replacements with Hill and James Davies completing the forward contingent.  Lloyd Williams comes straight into the matchday squad and provides backline cover along with Rhys Patchell and Tompkins.

ADVERTISEMENT

WALES (vs Scotland, Saturday)
1. Rhys Carre (Cardiff Blues (9 Caps)
2. Ryan Elias (Scarlets) (14 Caps)
3. Tomas Francis (Exeter Chiefs) (48 Caps)
4. Will Rowlands (Wasps) (1 Cap)
5. Alun Wyn Jones (Ospreys) (139 Caps) (CAPT)
6. Shane Lewis-Hughes (Cardiff Blues) (*Uncapped)
7. Justin Tipuric (Ospreys) (77 Caps)
8. Taulupe Faletau (Bath) (77 Caps)
9. Gareth Davies (Scarlets) (54 Caps)
10. Dan Biggar (Northampton Saints) (84 Caps)
11. Josh Adams (Cardiff Blues) (25 Caps)
12. Owen Watkin (Ospreys) (22 Caps)
13. Jonathan Davies (Scarlets) (82 Caps)
14. Liam Williams (Scarlets) (63 Caps)
15. Leigh Halfpenny (Scarlets) (90 Caps)

REPLACEMENTS:
16. Sam Parry (Ospreys) (1 Cap)
17. Wyn Jones (Scarlets) (25 Caps)
18. Dillon Lewis (Cardiff Blues) (27 Caps)
19. Cory Hill (Cardiff Blues) (26 Caps)
20. James Davies (Scarlets) (8 Caps)
21. Lloyd Williams (Cardiff Blues) (28 Caps)
22. Rhys Patchell (Scarlets) (20 Caps)
23. Nick Tompkins (Dragons) (5 Caps)

ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

J
JW 1 hour ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

144 Go to comments
TRENDING
TRENDING How the Black Ferns Sevens reacted to Michaela Blyde's code switch Michaela Blyde's NRLW move takes team by surprise
Search