Basham ready to take up Challenge again for Dragons
TAINE Basham’s sizzling hat-trick of tries for the Dragons against Castres in the European Challenge Cup last weekend helped convince Wayne Pivac to pick him in the Wales squad.
And the standout 20-year-old, who can play any position in the back-row, hopes to impress again when he lines up for the Gwent region against Enisei-STM.
Dragons are second in Pool One on points difference behind Worcester Warriors ahead of today’s date in Russia at Krasnodar’s Kuban Stadium (1500GMT).
Former Wales Under-20 star Basham “caught the eye” of new Wales coach Pivac and his forwards chief Jonathan Humphreys during Dragons’ confidenceboosting victory over 2018 French Top 14 champions Castres.
“It wasn’t a bad time to score three tries as a youngster!” said Pivac, before adding: “Taine did very well there. It’s about learning about players, so that we’ve got more information on them when it comes to the Six Nations.”
Basham was delighted to get his first senior Wales call-up, for the uncapped clash with the Barbarians at the Principality Stadium on November 30.
“It’s been a fantastic few days with the Castres game too. When you start off in this sport you want to see how far you can go and this is obviously a huge highlight for me,” he said.
Basham is the only member of Dragons’ eight-strong Wales contingent of Aaron Wainwright, Ross Moriarty, Elliot Dee, Leon Brown, Ashton Hewitt, Sam Davies and Ollie Griffiths named by Pivac to be making the long journey to Russia.
James Benjamin skippers the Dragons against Enisei-STM with prop Lloyd Fairbrother, hooker Ellis Shipp, half-backs Arwel Robson and Tavis Knoyle, and backrower Ben Fry making their first starts of the campaign.
Director of Rugby Ryan said: “We have made changes and have always been open with the group that this spell is a mix of us wanting to win games and also create opportunities.
“I am still pretty new at this club and there are still people I have only seen for 30 minutes of rugby.
“I want to create a balance between giving opportunities but also winning games.” Enisei-STM: N. Churashov; D. Meskhi, H. Marais, D. Gerasimov, B. Basson; R. Gaisin, A. Shcherban; N. Khatiashvili, S. Selskii, I. Zykov, U. Saulite (c), L. Eksteen, M. Gachechiladze, A. Temnov, J. Jordaan. Reps: S. Magomedov, E. Westhuizen, A. Musin, J. Brown, A. Budychenko, K. Uzunov, E. Douwrie, M. Gargalic.
Dragons: J. Williams, D. Howells, T. Morgan, T. Griffiths, W. Talbot-Davies, A. Robson, T. Knoyle; A. Jarvis, E. Shipp, L. Fairbrother, M. Screech, M. Williams, B.Fry, J. Benjamin (c), T. Basham. Reps: R. Lawrence, J. Reynolds, C. Coleman, J. Davies, H. Taylor, L. Baldwin, J. Botica, C. Edwards.
Referee: Sam Grove-White (Sco).