Fixtures
Sun 20 Sep Wales v Uruguay, Millennium Stadium, 2.30pm
Sat 26 Sep England v Wales, Twickenham, 8pm
Thurs 1 Oct Wales v Fiji, Millennium Stadium, 4.45pm
Sat 10 Oct Wales v Australia, Twickenham, 4.45pm
Odds to win World Cup
16/1
Coach
Warren Gatland
Captain
Warren Gatland’s final comment after he announced Wales’s World Cup squad was the need for his leading players to stay fit. A few days later, having long known he would be without the centre Jonathan Davies, he was having to redraw his plans after a costly victory over Italy at the Millennium Stadium.
Gatland’s initial reaction to the knee and ankle injuries suffered by the full-back Leigh Halfpenny and the scrum-half Rhys Webb that have now ruled them out of the World Cup, was to point out that neither was on the field last year when Wales led South Africa 17-0 at Nelspruit before being sunk by a late try and conversion.
Mike Phillips, who has replaced Webb in the squad, was the scrum-half that day, rolling back the years with a vintage performance that was the last of its kind from the Lion while Halfpenny’s replacement, Liam Williams, gave away the late penalty try that cost Wales victory.
Gatland is not one to fret about what cannot be but the loss of three key backs will impair Wales. Halfpenny is the most accurate and reliable goal-kicker in the game since the retirement of Jonny Wilkinson. Dan Biggar has a high conversion rate, although his range is shorter, but Halfpenny’s value stretches some way beyond the accumulation of points.
Williams, who has not played since last season because of a foot injury, offers thrust in attack but does not cover in defence as efficiently as Halfpenny, a player who is noticed when he is not playing because so much of what he does has come to be taken for granted. His loss is cruel for a team who had an advantage over group rivals England and Australia in terms of settled and experienced combinations.
Webb has been Wales’s first-choice scrum-half for a year since Phillips fell from favour but he has given them another dimension with his eye for a gap around the fringes and speed of pass to Biggar with the pair’s long association at Ospreys helping him settle. Biggar will assume the goal-kicking role at a time when he has to establish a rapport with Webb’s replacement, unless Phillips leapfrogs the other scrum-halves, Gareth Davies and Lloyd Williams, into the starting lineup.
Wales still have too many proven players, such as Jamie Roberts, George North, Biggar, Gethin Jenkins, Alun Wyn Jones, Sam Warburton, Taulupe Faletau and Dan Lydiate most notably, to be written off, but a difficult group has become even more challenging. Defeat to England at Twickenham would make their World Cup a knockout event early.
With Fiji, five days after England, and Australia to come, only victories would do and any temptation Gatland may have had to include some of the players he will start at Twickenham for the opening match against Uruguay in Cardiff now holds greater risk. All the talk about the need to thrash the weakest team in the group because points difference may determine who goes through has become less relevant than the need to win four matches.
If Wales lack the strength in depth of England and Australia, they have the advantage when it comes to knowing what they are about, as they showed in Dublin last month when, eschewing frills and risk, they ground down the Six Nations champions with such disciplined ruthlessness that they looked the team that had home advantage.
The four-point victory over Italy generated complaints that Wales lacked flair and variation: the more they moved the ball, the less ground and impact they made, but there was no Roberts to storm the gainline and no Jones to galvanise those around him by competing for anything and everything.
Wales will play at Twickenham, as they did in Dublin, using ball from the top of the lineout to send Roberts crashing away, get all their forwards to contest the ball at the breakdown and dare England to breach a defensive wall that will stretch the width of the pitch and kick from their own half to get themselves into range of Biggar’s boot.
Age 25
Caps 35
Position Fly-half
Wales debut v Canada, 14 Nov 2008
Pts 153 Tries 1 Conversions 26 Penalties 27 Drop-goals 5 Photograph: Huw Evans/Rex
They have lost the last two matches against England and a common denominator was the high number of penalties they conceded, something they have been focusing on in training. The scrum has been their undoing, the loosehead side in particular with Jenkins sent to the sin-bin at Twickenham last year and penalised three times in the first half in Cardiff last February, a match officiated by Jérôme Garcès, a late withdrawal from the warm-up against Italy who will be in charge at Twickenham on 26 September.
Any thought of sitting Jenkins out for England will be tempered by his contribution in the loose, where his tackling and ability to win turnovers mark him out. Wales have to find a way of getting him to keep the scrum straight or divert the blame for any crookedness on to Dan Cole.
When it comes to pushing boundaries and getting the most out of what he has, few do it better than Gatland.
Wales’ 31-man World Cup squad
Props Tomas Francis (Exeter), Paul James (Ospreys), Aaron Jarvis (Ospreys), Gethin Jenkins (Cardiff Blues), Samson Lee (Scarlets).
Hookers Scott Baldwin (Ospreys), Ken Owens (Scarlets).
Locks Jake Ball (Scarlets), Luke Charteris (Racing 92), Dominic Day (Bath), Bradley Davies (Wasps), Alun Wyn Jones (Ospreys).
Back-rows Taulupe Faletau (Newport Gwent Dragons), James King (Ospreys), Dan Lydiate (Ospreys), Justin Tipuric (Ospreys), Sam Warburton (Cardiff Blues, capt).
Scrum-halves Gareth Davies (Scarlets), Mike Phillips (Racing Metro) Lloyd Williams (Cardiff Blues).
Fly-halves Dan Biggar (Ospreys), Matthew Morgan (Bristol), Rhys Priestland (Bath).
Centres Cory Allen (Cardiff Blues), Jamie Roberts (Harlequins), Scott Williams (Scarlets).
Wings Hallam Amos (Newport Gwent Dragons), Alex Cuthbert (Cardiff Blues), George North (Northampton), Eli Walker (Ospreys)
Full-back Liam Williams (Scarlets).
