Pivac on surprise call, and how super skipper
WALES head coach Wayne Pivac made six changes to his starting XV to face Scotland in the Six Nations this weekend.
The changes come after Wales’ disappointing 38-21 defeat to France in Paris last weekend.
Wales cannot influence the outcome of the Six Nations, with only Ireland, England and France in with a shout of claiming the title. But they have now lost four games in a row and will be desperate to get a win.
Before Wales’ team was announced, news broke of Welsh rugby legend JJ Williams’ passing.
Pivac began his press conference by sending a message from the squad.
“I’d just like to mention the sad passing of former player JJ Williams,” said Pivac.
“On behalf of the national squad, management and team, our thoughts and condolences go out to JJ’s family and friends.”
Question: Does JJ’s passing make Saturday all the more poignant? Wayne Pivac: It always is when you have a player of that ilk sadly passing away. He had a fight with cancer and that’s come to an end unfortunately.
It’ll be mentioned today and, come Saturday, we’ll show our respects by wearing the black armbands.
Q: What’s impressed you about Shane Lewis-Hughes?
WP: As we know, it’s a contact sport and we pick up injuries from time to time. We had some with Ross Moriarty, Josh Macleod and Josh Navidi.
We just think he’s trained very well since coming in, he’s impressed everybody and he’s a player that we’ve earmarked for the future.
This is going to be a big test for him, but we think he deserves the opportunity after how he’s gone in training and what he’s showing us.
It’ll be an exciting day for him and his family.
Q: Does he offer something different compared to the other back-rowers?
WP:
Aaron Wainwright got an opportunity last Saturday and I don’t think he had his best game. By his own admission, there is work to be done.
The physicality that Shane brings in the defensive side of the game, which is a big part for us. He’s a good lineout forward, as is Aaron.
It gives us a little bit more starch in defence and that’s a job that he’ll be asked to do.
Q: Are Tomas Francis and Will
Rowlands in to bring that extra physicality?
WP:
We’ve made no secret since day one, since reviewing the 2019 World Cup, that it’s an area we want to look at.
We want to look at the profile and see if there are some big men out there. Will Rowlands gets the opportunity. He’s trained well over the first couple of days this week.
Tomas, coming back, was always going to get an opportunity. With Samson’s head injury, that’s probably come a game earlier than he anticipated.
It’s a big tight five but we’ve got to make sure that we’re fit, we can go for 80 minutes and that we have the skill set required to play the game. Q: Can you just talk us through the back three with George dropping out and Liam coming in?
WP: Louis Rees-Zammit has a shin problem, which could be the onset of some shin splints, so we just have to
be very careful with him. It’s kept him out of training this week.
Hopefully, he’ll be back in contention from the Ireland game onwards, with any luck.
Liam had a game for the Scarlets and you just look at the weather we’re expecting on the weekend, we feel that gives us the balance we want in the back three this week.
Q: You’ve lost four in a row, how big is this game?
WP:
We’re all the better for the game on the weekend. It was always going to be a tough one to get us back into match mode.
We tested the guys when they came in during the first week. Some guys tested really well and others had a bit of work to do.
Covid has taken its toll in that respect, but everyone is working really hard to try and get to where they need to be.
That game was very good for us in a lot of respects, we’ve channelled a
lot more work in certain areas this week than if we hadn’t had that game.
As for this game, you talk about results – it’s not lost on us. We know we need a good result this weekend and we want a good performance with a win.
It won’t be easy, Scotland are playing well, we’d be silly not to be gearing up for some wet weather and that’ll put a new twist on a home game.
Q: Alun Wyn Jones will break a world record this weekend, just sum him up for us?
WP: First thing is that Alun Wyn doesn’t like these sort of conversations going on so I’ll keep it short!
He’s a true leader and it’s a phenomenal achievement. He not only leads by example in the games but in training, he’s magnificent in the way he carries himself.
He’s the first to every drill, always
doing his extras and very professional in the way he prepares for training. He’s a great example for us.
Q: Is there any reason why he can’t go through to the next World Cup? WP: Well, if you look at it on ability and form, right now, I would have to say that there is no reason why he couldn’t go to a World Cup, should he stay injury free.
Everybody, though, does have that time when the body starts to slow down. Some go off a cliff quicker than others.
But there is no reason why Alun Wyn couldn’t be one of those where you throw away the birth certificate and you just look at what he’s doing on a daily basis. At the moment, he’s first on the teamsheet.
Q: What were you hoping to see from Nick Tompkins that, perhaps, he didn’t bring last weekend? WP:
We were pretty happy with Nick in attack. There were a few little errors in defence and Nick was involved in one of them, just being checked by the prop when Justin Tipuric put some pressure on first receiver.
It’s just making sure we get those little things right.
With Owen Watkin, it’s more about wanting to see him. You’re going to see this with the selections over the autumn campaign.
He came into the Six Nations
campaign with an injury so he was always on the back foot for selection.
But now he’s free of injury, he’s had a few games for the Ospreys and we’re looking forward to seeing how he goes in his first start for a while.
Q: What’s your approach to dropping a player?
WP:
First of all, we set out the way that we’re going to approach the campaign on day one, so everybody knows that.
The Six Nations is where we have to be hitting our straps. But at the moment we’re looking to improve our game, build depth in the squad and give some guys opportunities in big games.
That was spoken about when we first came in.
The players who played against France that aren’t involved this week have been spoken to individually.
In the case of George North, I sat him down the night before speaking to the group about selection. We went through George’s game, where he’s at after some time out because of the red card.
In fitness testing, he was supreme but he just didn’t have his best game. We talked around that, George understands that and knows what he needs to work on.
We spoke to all of the players that we feel needed to be spoken to.
Unfortunately you can’t get around everyone, but those who missed out after playing last week will certainly get spoken to.
Q: Lloyd Williams is straight in on the bench, what could Kieran Hardy have done to get that spot? WP: Probably have played in a World Cup like Lloyd and played 29 Test matches!
Look, it’s a Six Nations match and it’s a match we want to win.
We said all along that Kieran was selected as one of the young group for the future. He will get an opportunity in the autumn series.
Our plan wasn’t to play him in the first two games and we’ve stuck to that.
Lloyd knew that not being named in the initial squad didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to partake if there were injuries.
Those things were spoken about prior to coming in.
Q: Saturday will be a home game in Llanelli, with no fans, and it will be very odd for the players?
WP:
It’s something that has been discussed but the players themselves have played a number of club games with no crowds.
They’re getting used to having to bring the tempo themselves and not get lifted by the crowd. It’s something that we’ve talked about.
During stoppages in play, the leaders within the group have to make sure the right message is being delivered and it’s a matter of geeing ourselves up.
We will remind them about that before the game as well.
It’s a challenge for everybody.
Q: How much are you focusing on the kicking game and the breakdown this week?
WP:
Hugely. You’re spot on. They are two areas in which we didn’t perform well.
We went to the air quite a bit and felt that it could be a strength. We turned over too much ball when trying to retrieve kicks and we put a couple down that were kicked to us.
We weren’t where we needed to be.
The boys are doing a lot of extra work on that this week.
At the breakdown, they were able to slow our ball down and it’s something I spoke to the referee about before the game, knowing that Shaun was involved in their coaching group.
I think they gave away about 16 penalties, but had no yellow card. We’ve got to look at ways we can get speed of ball without relying on a referee.
To be fair, we probably did a lot more set-piece work last week. We always planned to do a lot more work in that area this week but it was highlighted in the game against France.