1
Beefy's grandson among two Welsh call-ups for Autumn Nations Cup
By PA
Sir Ian Botham’s grandson James has received a maiden call-up to Wales’ Autumn Nations Cup squad.
The 22-year-old has been added to Wayne Pivac’s group for forthcoming games against Georgia and England, having previously trained with the senior players.
The Cardiff Blues flanker, who has represented Wales Under-20s, comes from a sporting family as not only his is grandfather one of the greatest cricketers ever to play for England, his father Liam also played professional rugby in both codes.
James Botham was born in the Welsh capital in 1998 when his dad was playing for Cardiff and is highly rated within the Wales set-up.
Johnny McNicholl has also been called up. The New Zealand-born utility player has won four caps for Wales and comes back into the group after a recent injury.
The Welsh Rugby Union confirmed in a statement on Monday evening: “Wales have called Johnny McNicholl and James Botham into their squad for the Autumn Nations Cup.
“McNicholl, who has been capped four times by Wales, made his debut in the 2020 Guinness Six Nations and has returned from injury to be available for selection.
“Former Wales U20 backrow Botham, who has previously trained with the squad receives his first official squad call-up.”
Wales, beaten 32-9 by Ireland on Friday, face Georgia in Llanelli on Saturday and then take on England seven days later.
Trending on RugbyPass
2
Fissler Confidential: Paddy Jackson Premiership bound?
3
Fabien Galthie's emphatic World Cup statement after Six Nations win
4
Four England talking points after their Six Nations rout of Wales
5
Latest Comments
Well lets hope so. England have developed a very strong kicking game and I'm all for them going to it on a regular basis to get into the right areas of the field but they need to find the right balance. They've been far too predictable and far too low risk. Tindall recently summed up my thoughts on this... “rugby is a pressure game, it's about building phases”. Against Scotland they almost never went over 2 phases, it was super weird. None of the top 4 sides are playing in this manner, I don't see where the precedent is for this staccato style of play. We've got an exceptional group of loose forwards developing, let's make use of that quick ball! Hopefully the Welsh game is a turning point and the coaches will trust the players to take a few more risks. It's not that I have anything against kicking in test matches, it's absolutely essential that we kick well but we do that already, it's the rest of the attack which has been missing. This relentless kicking isn't the way the best sides win test matches these days. Kick well, kick lots but we need to be setup to take advantage of quick ball and defensive misalignments around the halfway line and we need to build pressure by going multiphase in the 22 instead of grubber kicking it or crossfielding with such high regularity.
Go to commentsAgreed, seen far too many false dawns as an England fan and here are still far too many question marks over Borthwick and his coaching team. The Scotland and Ireland performances were still poor, even if we managed to stay on the right side of the scoreboard on one of them. France game we were fortunate but we at least played well
Go to comments