Teenage star Ioan Lloyd has been told to go back to his club and nail down a starting spot in the Bristol Bears side and work on the defensive areas of his game.
Lloyd, 19, made his Wales senior debut in the Autumn Nations Cup after receiving a shock call-up for the autumn campaign in 2020. He ended up coming off the bench against Georgia and Italy but has been left out of Wales head coach Wayne Pivac's 36-man squad for the 2021 Guinness Six Nations.
The youngster is an option at full-back and fly-half, and has proven himself an accomplished winger for the Bears in recent weeks. With Callum Sheedy named in the Wales squad once again having earned four caps in the autumn, Lloyd looks set to get a run of games in the Gallagher Premiership at fly-half during the international window.
However at this early stage in his international career Lloyd is considered a back three player, with Pivac instead selecting: George North, Josh Adams, Hallam Amos, Louis Rees-Zammit, Leigh Halfpenny and Liam Williams.
Discussing Lloyd, Pivac said: "He is a wonderful young man.
"The discussion with Ioan was around getting a string of games together for Bristol.
"He has exploded onto the scene with Bristol, we have called him in and had a good, close-up look at him.
"You will have seen in the Italy game there are parts of his game [defensively] that he needs to work on at this level, clearly.
"Those messages have gone back to Pat Lam [at Bristol] so Pat will be working hard with Ioan over this period.
Lloyd looks to have taken those messages on board having put in some impressive defensive displays for Bristol in the four games he has played so far this season, including a couple of try saving tackles, using his increasing strength and size to bundle players into touch.
Pivac added: "Realistically for Ioan he's now going to be working hard to put himself in line for a summer tour, which is part of our planning."
Wales are set to tour Argentina this summer at the same times as the British and Irish Lions are due to play South Africa.
