Warren Gatland has changed Wales’s entire lineup for the fixture against England at Twickenham on Saturday, handing a debut to the Scarlets centre Joe Roberts and installing Dewi Lake as captain.
Roberts lines up in midfield with Nick Tompkins while there are also starts for Owen Williams at fly-half, Tom Rogers on the wing and at No 8 Taine Plumtree, who impressed when winning his first cap off the bench in the 20-9 win against England last Saturday.
Lake has just eight caps but assumes the captaincy for the first time, just as Jac Morgan did so impressively last weekend. Liam Williams, Josh Adams – who wins his 50th cap – Tomas Francis and Dan Lydiate provide experience to the side against what is also expected to be a much-changed England XV.
“There’s an opportunity for another group of players who weren’t involved last week,” Gatland said. “There’s some great competition within the squad. I was pretty pleased with the team performance and the result last week – it wasn’t perfect but there’s a chance now for this group to go out Saturday and to put down their own marker.
“Like I said, there’s some real competition and perhaps a bit of pressure on this group as well. Then we’ll look potentially what the make up of the team is the following week against South Africa.”
Joining Lake and Francis in the front-row is Gareth Thomas while Rhys Davies wins his third cap at lock alongside Adam Beard. Tommy Reffell completes the back-row at openside flanker while Tomos Williams joins his namesake Owen in the half-backs. The loosehead prop Kemsley Mathias and the Ospreys centre Keiran Williams are also in line for debuts from the bench where they are joined by Sam Parry, Dillon Lewis, Christ Tshiunza, Taine Basham, Kieran Hardy and Dan Biggar.
Meanwhile, Scotland have been handed a boost with the tighthead prop Zander Fagerson available for their World Cup opener against South Africa following his red card against France last weekend.
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A four-week ban was initially deemed appropriate for Fagerson, who charge into a ruck and made contact with Pierre Bougharit’s head, but that was reduced by a week on mitigation. A further week will be taken off his ban if he takes part in the coaching intervention programme – or “tackle school” – which will make him available to face the Springboks.