Hill injury intensifies selection headache
WARREN Gatland held crunch talks last night on whether to take injured Cory Hill to the World Cup while Rhys Patchell and Owen Lane made late cases for selection in their 22-17 warm-up defeat to Ireland.
Hill hasn’t been seen on a rugby pitch since Wales’ victory over England in the Six Nations and Gatland has revealed he has a small fracture in his leg.
Gatland will name his final 31-man World Cup squad today with a big decision to be made at outside-half with Patchell and Jarrod Evans vying to be Dan Biggar’s understudy in Japan.
The Kiwi has plenty of food for thought after Ireland’s victory spoiled his Principality Stadium farewell.
“Our big discussion will be with Cory Hill,” said Gatland.
“He’s got a small fracture in his leg that we scanned yesterday. It’s a very small fracture which will probably keep him out until game two or game three.
“So it will be a big discussion point over whether we take him or not.
“It’ll take a few hours to finalise the squad and there’s probably half a dozen positions that are up for debate. After that we’re quite comfortable with the make-up of our squad.
“There’s no doubt that Rhys came on and did a good job but it’s a hell of a lot easier to come off the bench with no pressure on you.
“He played flat, scored a try and kicked well. He’s done well.
“It was hard for Jarrod in the first-half when the team’s not going well with the set-piece a little bit iffy and some of our ball presentation wasn’t good.
“We conceded a few turnovers at the breakdown and it was a little bit messy. We’ve got to put those things into perspective.”
A disjointed first-half performance saw Ireland race into a 22-3 lead with a brace of touchdowns from wing Jacob Stockdale and a penalty try putting Joe Schmidt’s side in complete control.
Second-half replacement Patchell dragged Wales kicking and screaming back into the game with a terrific late try after a welltaken finish from debutant Lane.
But it was a case of too little, too late as Wales were made to pay for their inadequacies at scrum time which saw them concede a penalty try with replacement tighthead Leon Brown sent to the sin bin.
Despite the defeat Gatland was adamant this is the strongest Wales squad he has ever taken to the World Cup.
He added: “I think so, yes.
The pleasing thing about these guys is that they showed great character and showed what it means to play for Wales.
“They were disappointed with the first-half and I take a lot of pride out the fact that yes we lost today but they just don’t give up. They kept coming back and kept trying and were quite positive towards the end.
“They were a little bit unlucky. That team will be much better for that hit out today.”
After his last home international at the Principality Stadium Gatland added: “I was a bit emotional today. Even coming off the pitch I was emotional thinking it will be my last time here and the last time going down Westgate Street to the stadium.
“I just want to say a big thank you to everyone in Wales. It’s a special nation with special people who are very passionate and very kind.
“It’s a nation of 3.3 million people and I think we’ve massively overachieved in what we’ve done over this last 12 years but we’re not finished yet. If we are mentally and physically right and go out there and are on our game I think we can beat any team in the world.
“I honestly believe we will go a long way at the World Cup.”
Despite the defeat captain Josh Navidi is confident Wales are in a good place heading out to Japan.
“I’m disappointed with the loss,” said Navidi. “In the first-half we didn’t come off the line as well as we usually do so they had front-foot ball.
“We did have opportunities and if the pass did go to hand we could have finished on a few occasions. We came out firing in the second-half and there was only a try in it at the end.
“We can take that forward. We’re in a good place going to Japan.”
Ireland coach Joe Schmidt said: “I knew we were heavy legged last week, we knew how hard we worked in Portugal and we knew we would be vulnerable.
“We restored self confidence this week and we have to make sure we build on this. There will be a number of changes next week and it will be a whole different contest.
“It was great to be able to bank on our set-piece, that area was much improved, we lost a lineout but our scrum was very strong.”