Wales players against Tonga
could yield a big reward.
JAKE BALL
ANOTHER with a half-decent chance of returning to favour if all goes well this weekend.
Injuries have hampered the Scarlet for too long but he is fit again and has proven in the past he can be an asset.
He isn’t an explosive ball carrier, but he is a grafter and in the right mood he can be physical.
Not so long ago he was Alun Wyn Jones’s regular boiler-house partner, but injuries and the rise of Cory Hill changed that and Adam Beard has now also forced his way into the frame.
But don’t rule Ball out just yet. It will take a big effort to power his way past Hill and Beard, but the 6ft 6in Scarlet at his best is a force to be reckoned with.
ADAM BEARD
HE has emerged as a lucky charm for Wales, finishing on the winning side in each of the six Tests he has played.
But the suspicion is Warren Gatland isn’t a man who sleeps with a four-leaf clover under his pillow at night.
Lucky charms are for others to hang onto. Wales’s coach tends to need a bit more to justify a selection. What of Beard, then?
The 6ft 8in Osprey had a superb summer tour with Wales and so had earned his chance to face Australia’s big second-row pair Adam Coleman and Izack Rodda last weekend. He didn’t let anyone down.
But nor did his effort quite hit the heights of his work in Argentina five months earlier.
While he started last week, he still has much to gain on Saturday, by simply holding the shirt for the last game of the series.
It is a big prize that could position him nicely 10 months out from the World Cup.
But he needs to perform.
ELLIS JENKINS
JENKINS’S misfortune was to miss the opening game of the autumn because of injury.
In his absence, Justin Tipuric banged in a man-of-the-match performance and Dan Lydiate would also have featured in a debate about that particular bauble.
Tipuric followed it up with another player-of-the-day effort against Australia.
He is surely undroppable, though it is not entirely certain that particular word exists in Warren Gatland’s vocabulary.
But let’s assume Tipuric starts against the Springboks and so does Ross Moriarty.
The likelihood is Lydiate will as well on the basis of the physical challenge Rassie Erasmus’s side will pose.
But Jenkins shone off the bench in the 9-6 win over Australia and another strong effort might just give Gatland a decision to make in the No.6 jersey.
He will probably stick with Lydiate and it would be reward for his relentless hard work over the first two games, but nothing is guaranteed.