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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.
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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