ARGENTINA v WALES: SEB STAYS AT SIX
Cardiff Blues star keeps his place, but Warren Gatland rings changes elsewhere for Pumas Test
WARREN Gatland has made a total of nine changes to his Wales team for Saturday night’s first Test against Argentina.
The Wales boss has made eight changes to the team along with one positional switch following the 22-20 victory over South Africa at the weekend.
Dragons second row Cory Hill captains the team while Ellis Jenkins, who led the side to victory over South Africa in Washington, not involved.
He met the press in Buenos Aires to explain his thinking.
Question: Eight changes and lots of talking points – is Ellis Jenkins injured?
WG: Ellis is fine. He’s a little bit frustrated because he had a good game last weekend, but we said all along that this tour is about giving players an opportunity, finding out about players.
James needs an opportunity, we didn’t get Aaron Wainwright on last week, so we’d like to see him get a bit of time.
Before the tour started we said everyone would get a chance to be in the 23, so we’re trying to stick to that. I see Ellis being a part of next week. We haven’t changed any of our thinking around what we were trying to achieve.
Some players get an opportunity to back up because we thought they’d done OK, so they go again.
Other players get a chance to start, so it’s going to be a big challenge for us.
Q: Cory Hill is leading his country for the first time in a hostile environment, how confident are you in his ability to cope?
WG: I think this year has been hard on the Dragons players but we had two Dragons forwards that started again South Africa and came away with a win.
It’s great for their confidence. I think Cory Hill, as I’ve said on a few occasions, has probably been the most-improved player in Welsh rugby in the last 18 months.
What was pleasing for me is that a lot of those players have had experienced players around them and followed that lead.
Some of them have had to step up and demonstrate some real leadership and I thought Ellis did a great job last weekend and I think Cory as well.
Cory gets a chance to captain the side and that was the thinking around naming the co-captains.
We looked at potentially what the make-up of the teams might be and it just gave us an opportunity to try someone else in that role.
Q: The front row is fairly inexperienced – it’s a tough task for them against the Pumas...
WG: It’s very inexperienced. We have watched them and there are certain games the Jaguares have played in where they’ve dominated some teams and there are some games where they’ve been under pressure at set piece.
We expect a real challenge from that. The threat that South Africa imposed on us is exactly the one that we expect. We’re expecting them to try and take our legs from us at scrum and driving lineouts.
We were happy with the way our set piece went for 65 minutes last week. There’s an opportunity for a couple of those front rowers to start again.
It’s about these players competing at the very highest level.
We’re all well aware in the past that if we’d made 11 changes against a southern hemisphere side, they could have put out their fourth or fifth team and beaten us comfortably.
For us to win last week was a massive step forward for us.
Q: Josh Adams is straight in on the wing, he’s not a bad replacement for Steff Evans...
WG: It’s unlucky for Steff with the injury, but Josh, coming from a club that had a tough season, was top try scorer in the Aviva Premiership and he comes in with a lot of confidence.
The fact he’s had a good season, he’s scored those tries, we’ve seen it in the way he’s trained this week, he’s talking and communicating well.
I know he was very disappointed to be left out but he gets a chance and hopefully Saturday goes well for him.
Q: Rhys Patchell has a real opportunity at 10 this week...
WG: We had a debate about that, whether or not we carry on with Gareht.
Rhys gets a chance this weekend and we look at the 9,10,12,13 combination, they’re fairly familiar with each other.
That’s probably why we went with that change at 10.
We’ve been pleased with Rhys’ performances towards the end of the season.
He started the Six Nations well, found the step up against England a challenge but the conversation with him was to get back on the horse and I think he’s learned from that experience.
We saw him play well towards the end of the season.
Q: There was a bit of pressure on him before that England game, do you think that might be the making of him?
WG: I don’t think the pressure had anything to do with it. It was a step up in intensity and something he hadn’t experienced before.
We’ve had a lot of players go through that in their first international cap, or against a major nation - when the intensity or tempo of the game went up, they’ve found it
tough. We made a change in that game and he definitely learnt from that. I think he’s going to be a better player for it.
Q: Were you tempted to start Rob Evans and Tomas Francis?
WG: We’re looking at the moment to find out about the players. These players are well aware of how important the next couple of games are going to be.
They really want to push themselves forward. Looking at the World Cup squad, can we do what we did in 2015 and take 5 props, someone who can over both sides?
At the moment we don’t think that’s an option for us so we’re looking at nine front rowers. Three looseheads, three tightheads, three hookers.
If you’re doing an 18-13 split that only leaves 4 second rows and 5 loose forwards. It’s pretty tight and given the depth of loose forwards we’ve got in wales at the moment there are going to be some quality players who miss out in that position.
Everyone’s aware of the opportunity and putting their hand up. That’s why this front row get their chance and there are other players we could’ve played but that’s not our objective.
Q: What’s the thinking behind selecting Seb Davies at 6 again?
WG: The reason we’ve gone with Seb, he had three days last week where he didn’t train. He had a virus and we definitely feel that had an impact.
There were a couple of nice touches in attack. We want to see some improvements defensively but we just felt he deserved another chance at this level.