‘I won’t pick Tommy just to stop England’

WALES coach Wayne Pivac says it would have been wrong to select Tommy Reffell just to prevent him from playing for England.

Pencoed product Reffell has been in excellent form for Leicester, earning rave reviews for his displays on the openside flank.

But the former Wales U20s captain,has missed out on a place in Pivac’s squad for next month’s Tests against Canada and Argentina, with James Botham and Taine Basham picked ahead of him.

That will doubtless lead to increased speculation over whether England coach Eddie Jones will now look to bring him on board when he announces his summer squad later this week.

Reffell is eligible to wear the red rose on residency grounds, having been with the Tigers for some five years, and has reportedly been on Jones’ radar.

So while playing for Wales is very much the 22-year-old’s ambition, there is the potential danger of him being lost to England.

However, Pivac said he couldn’t allow that to colour his thinking when picking his 34-man squad.

“You’ve got to select on what you think is the right mix at the time,” he said. “We’re not going to select players to stop them playing for another country. I don’t think that’s the right thing to do - to get a guy capped and then not use him.

“I’d like to select every young Welsh rugby player and make their dream come true, but seven is a position where we have a lot of good young talent.

“James Botham and Taine Basham have both been in the squad before and have impressed us in our training sessions.

“Then we’ve got Jac (Morgan) and Tommy. Again, it’s which ones to leave out and, at the moment, it’s certainly the ones playing in Wales which have an advantage. We’re comfortable with the ones we’ve selected as they’ve got runs on the board in our environment.”