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Gatland confirms official 33-man Wales Rugby World Cup squad
By Ian Cameron
Dewi Lake and Jac Morgan have been named as co-captain for Wales as Warren Gatland cofirmed Wales Rugby World Cup squad.
The 33-player squad is made up of 19 forwards and 14 backs with an average age of 27 years old. Seventeen players have previous Rugby World Cup experience.
“The toughest part of the job is always selection and this is particularly the case when it comes to picking a Rugby World Cup squad,” said Gatland.
“Over the past three months the whole group of 48 players in the wider training squad has been outstanding in terms of attitude and effort, so having to reduce the squad down to the final 33 has been really hard and there have been some close final decisions in the last 36 hours.
“But we can only take 33 players and those we have selected we think offer a good combination in terms of talent and experience.
“We have a few more training sessions here in Wales before we depart for France on 3 September and we cannot wait to get out there and get started in this tournament. We look forward to what lies ahead for this group.
“This will be a very proud moment for these players, their families and friends and I’d like to congratulate them all on the achievement.”
Teddy Williams, Kieran Hardy, Rhys Davies, Max Llewellyn, Kemsley Mathias, Taine Plumtree, Cai Evans, Keiran Williams, Tom Rogers, Sam Parry, Ben Carter and Keiron Assiratti have all failed to make the cut.
Drawn in Pool C, Wales’ Rugby World Cup campaign in France begins against Fiji in Bordeaux (Saturday 10 September, kick off 2000 BST). The squad then travels to Nice to play Portugal (Saturday 16 September, kick off 1645 BST), before facing Australia in Lyon (Sunday 24 September, kick off 2000 BST) and meeting Georgia in Nantes (Saturday 7 October, kick off 1400 BST).
FORWARDS (19)
Taine Basham
Adam Beard
Elliot Dee
Corey Domachowski
Ryan Elias
Taulupe Faletau
Tomas Francis
Dafydd Jenkins
Dewi Lake
Dillon Lewis
Dan Lydiate
Jac Morgan
Tommy Reffell
Will Rowlands
Nicky Smith
Gareth Thomas
Henry Thomas
Christ Tshiunza
Aaron Wainwright
BACKS (14)
Josh Adams
Gareth Anscombe
Dan Biggar
Sam Costelow
Gareth Davies
Rio Dyer
Mason Grady
Leigh Halfpenny
George North
Louis Rees-Zammit
Nick Tompkins
Johnny Williams
Liam Williams
Tomos Williams
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Latest Comments
Politics aside - yes ofc the advent of professionalism was accompanied by the famous comment by Will Carling!
“If the game is run properly as a professional game, you do not need 57 old farts running rugby”.
And that has been the case for far too long, both in lawmaking and administration of the game.
England had the opportunity to contract all their big players in 1995 but sat on their hands and did b-- all. They opened Pandora's Box by doing nothing.
Go to commentsIt says quite a lot about the mentality of Reiko that he waited for the final whistle to say something. Maybe there’s an underlying sense of vulnerability there. Didn’t say anything till the result was secured. And it’s an uncharacteristic outburst coming from an All Black. It’s a bit odd
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