World Cup announcement response as Warren Gatland set to call 33-man squad

Wales’ defeat to the Springboks on the weekend was their third and remaining warm-up earlier than the World Cup begins. Head coach Warren Gatland now has three weeks to hone his squad earlier than launching his fourth marketing campaign in control of the Dragons.

“I was pleased with the first couple of games in terms of the physicality we brought against England. We weren’t quite there against South Africa,” he admitted.

“The breakdown needs to be a cleaner and it was a little bit disjointed from an attack perspective. We created some nice chances down the short-side, and we probably needed to look at that a little bit more.

“I thought our box kicking was effective but we didn’t have enough variation in terms of cross-field kicks and kicks in behind. They were pretty much front loaded in terms of having 14 in the line and space in behind.

“We’ll look at those things and see where we can get better in terms of putting the team under a little bit more pressure. For us we’ve got to be more accurate with ball in hand and not give away soft points.”

Here’s a take a look at the present Wales squad earlier than Warren Gatland wants to chop it right down to 33 this afternoon:

Forwards (26): Corey Domachowski, Kemsley Mathias, Nicky Smith, Gareth Thomas, Elliot Dee, Ryan Elias, Dewi Lake, Sam Parry, Keiron Assiratti, Tomas Francis, Dillon Lewis, Henry Thomas, Adam Beard, Ben Carter, Rhys Davies, Dafydd Jenkins, Will Rowlands, Christ Tshiunza, Teddy Williams, Taine Basham, Dan Lydiate, Jac Morgan, Taine Plumtree, Taulupe Faletau, Tommy Reffell, Aaron Wainwright.

Backs (22): Gareth Davies, Kieran Hardy, Tomos Williams, Gareth Anscombe, Dan Biggar, Sam Costelow, Owen Williams, Mason Grady, Max Llewellyn, George North, Nick Tompkins, Johnny Williams, Joe Roberts, Keiran Williams, Josh Adams, Alex Cuthbert, Rio Dyer, Cai Evans, Leigh Halfpenny, Louis Rees-Zammit, Tom Rogers, Liam Williams.

15 gamers will right this moment be taught that they haven’t been included in Wales’ Rugby World Cup squad when the 48-man squad is reduce right down to 33.

Players can elect to obtain an e-mail, telephone name or textual content shortly earlier than the general public announcement ought to they be unfortunate in choice.

“We have been so impressed with this group of players,” he mentioned.

“And as it has turned out there was an opportunity for us to give everyone a chance to put their hand up. We feel that the time we have had together, we’ve increased the depth and competition within the squad.

“A number of teams have picked up one or two injuries, so you have got to have players who have been with you for that period, hopefully had some game time and been training with the squad.”

Wales head coach Warren Gatland believes that “depth and competition” has elevated in his squad as World Cup choice looms massive.

Reigning world champions South Africa offered Wales’ remaining warm-up opposition on the Principality Stadium on Saturday.

The race for World Cup locations in Gatland’s 33-strong group is then resulting from conclude on Monday when he names these gamers who will head to France subsequent month.

Only fly-half Gareth Anscombe, wing Alex Cuthbert and quantity eight Taulupe Faletau, who’re recovering from accidents, haven’t featured competitively amongst a 48-man coaching squad in the course of the August schedule.

Warren Gatland says selecting a squad for the World Cup, or every other event, is essentially the most tough a part of being a world head coach.

Writing within the Telegraph the Wales boss mentioned: “‌Selection is the hardest part of being a head coach.

“It is tough letting players down and knowing that they are disappointed. And I understand that disappointment. If they weren’t disappointed, they probably shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

In today’s society, it sometimes feels like we tell everyone everything, and everyone is given information in order to make everyone feel comfortable and good about themselves. But life is not always like that.

“Some of the players will no doubt be disappointed. And the coaches and I will be available for a phone call afterwards for feedback. Some players may not look for feedback, and that is fine too. I fully respect that.

“I expect them to be unhappy with selection and trying to prove me wrong. Realistically, given the amount of injuries you expect to pick up during a World Cup, some of them will know they could yet be involved anyway.”

Warren Gatland believes his Wales crew will take classes from their 52-16 thumping in opposition to South Africa and that the gamers shall be higher due to the expertise of the defeat.

“It was disappointing because we were dominated physically on both sides of the ball. We’d spoken to the players about the physicality they’d bring and the fact they were playing against the world champions who’d just come out of a Rugby Championship,” mentioned Gatland.

“We were playing against a quality, world class side who were fully loaded and who made the most of their opportunities. The only positive I can take is there is hopefully a lot of learning that some of the players will have taken from the game.

“The disappointing thing for me were the soft tries we gifted them – it didn’t help throwing a couple of intercepts. We stayed in the game in the first half for a long period and it was pretty tight.

“I think there are some easy fixes. Probably four or five of their tries are easy enough to stop and then all of a sudden there’s a different complexion on the game.

“Contact wise we need to be a little bit better and a little bit quicker into the breakdown. When we had good line speed, we stopped some of their momentum and we need to continue to work on getting off the line to stop the physical dominance they ended up having.

“There’ll be a lot of good learnings we can take out of this to build over the next few weeks. I’m not so happy today, but I’m pretty pleased with the progression we’ve made and how hard we’ve worked.

Former Wales Rugby captain, Sam Warburton, says he has no doubt that Jac Morgan will be named captain for the 2023 Rugby World Cup.

Hooker Dewi Lake is Morgan’s the main rival for the armband but is struggling with a knee injury so the way seems open for 23-year-old Morgan to take charge of the team.

“Jac will be captain – I’m fairly sure of that,” Warburton mentioned. “And I also think Taine Basham showed up very well off the bench in the last two games and I believe he will get the nod because he can also cover six and has experience at eight for the Dragons.

“What’s going to be sad, because all the back-rowers are worthy of going, is that someone like a Dan Lydiate or a Tommy Reffell is going to miss out I feel because they’re specialists at six and seven respectively.”

Taulupe Faletau might make the journey to his fourth World Cup no matter his absence from all three of Wales’ warm-up video games. The No 8 continues to be recovering from a calf grievance, however is nearing health and is within the ideas of Wales head coach Warren Gatland.

Outside-half Gareth Anscombe, who has a thumb harm that pressured him to take a seat out the warm-ups as nicely can be being highlighted by Gatland who mentioned:

“They’re in contention because of their experience. If they were young players, it would be very, very difficult to select them.

“But given the vast amount of experience, they’ll definitely be part of these discussions.”

Ex-England fly-half Danny Cipriani says English rugby is ‘digging its own grave’ following a 29-10 defeat to Ireland on the Aviva Stadium on Saturday.

Cipriani, who performed 16 instances for England, tore into the aspect on social media saying it was being led ‘by people who do not understand the art of the game.’

England conceded 5 tries of their World Cup warm-up sport in Dublin and head coach Steve Borthwick faces additional disciplinary-based disruptions this week following Billy Vunipola’s pink card.