Hadleigh Parkes has revealed the secret to his telepathic relationship with centre partner Jonathan Davies.
Since Parkes made his Wales debut in 2017, no centre pairing in world rugby has played more international rugby together than the Scarlets duo.
The Georgia game will be the 11th time they have worn the red 12 and 13 jerseys together, despite Davies’ 2018-19 season ending with a foot injury in November.
And Parkes explained how it is their rapport off the field that has allowed the duo to flourish on it.
“We get on pretty well, we have roomed together for most of the time over here,” said Parkes.
“We have coffees, we go out for dinner and stuff like that. The more times you get to play together, the better it gets and the easier it gets as well.
“If you get on well off the field, it makes it a lot easier to go out there and to have each other’s back on the field as well.”
Parkes agreed that, at times, he and Davies are almost telepathic.
“Yeah, sometimes. Having played with him a lot, you kind of know what he is going to do, a little bit. He reads the game very well," continued Parkes.
“I know that he’s always got my back. If I turn inside, I know he’s going to be there.
“I think we are pretty lucky that we get to play at regional level as well. Foxy is one of those guys who has done extremely well on the world stage for a number of years."
Parkes will make his World Cup debut on Monday and he feels fit and ready to make a real mark on the competition.
Having been through the gruelling three-month training camp that took players to the altitude of the Swiss Alps and the heat of Turkey, Parkes explained the impact the regime had on him.
“I just feel fit. Sometimes, and I know it sounds silly, it’s more the recovery speed after a period of exertion,” he explained.
“We play a lot of touch games in training to put yourself under pressure with the ball. When you first start doing it, you are taking a long time to recover.
“Now, you are recovering very quickly, and you can feel that in games as well after a two or three-minute phase - you recover so much quicker.”
Having attended his first World Cup capping ceremony, where players are presented with special caps and participation medals, he said: "It was emotional. To get that cap and the medal, you go back to your room and kind of look at it for a little while.
“It has been a pretty awesome journey, a privileged and humbling journey I’ve been on the last couple of years, and it’s one I have loved every moment of. To be over here as part of this group is pretty surreal.
“It’s been an intense three months and you have always had that carrot at the end of the tunnel, and now you are actually here, you have got to pinch yourself that you are at a World Cup, you are in Japan - the first one in Asia.”
