Josh Adams tackles the speculation he will fill No13 Wales shirt

Josh Adams says he would be “more than happy” to play his first Test match in the centre when Wales launch their Guinness Six Nations title defence on Saturday. The top try-scorer at the 2019 World Cup in Japan has won all of his 35 caps as a wing and scored 17 tries during an international career that also saw him selected for last summer’s British and Irish Lions tour to South Africa.

Wales head coach Wayne Pivac selected Adams in the No13 shirt against Autumn Nations Series opponents Fiji earlier this season, but he missed out through injury after the warm-up.

With George North, who excelled at outside centre during last season’s Six Nations campaign, continuing his recovery from a serious knee injury, it could be that Pivac again turns to Adams. “If that is where the coaches think I am best fitted for the team, that will be an exciting challenge for myself,” Adams said.

“I had a little cameo there against Toulouse a few weeks back with Cardiff. I enjoyed it. It was a different experience, maybe a few more touches of the ball, a bit more of a voice communicating-wise. Wherever I am needed, I will be more than happy. As long as I get to wear that red shirt, I am happy to play anywhere.”

Despite heading to Dublin as reigning Six Nations champions, Wales are only fourth favourites behind France, England and Ireland for a repeat achievement. They are also without a number of injured Lions, including North, Alun Wyn Jones, Leigh Halfpenny, Ken Owens, Justin Tipuric and Josh Navidi.

Adams added: “I don’t think many people expected us to win the championship (last year) did they? We are always the same as a group. We always try to keep ourselves tight, we have got confidence within the group and we work extremely hard, I can guarantee you that.

“Noticeably, my end anyway, the training intensity and the way that we have prepared this first week-and-a-half has been considerably better and more intense than what we were in the autumn.

“We have been no different to what we were doing in the autumn in some ways – obviously, small variations of course – but our intensity as a whole was a lot better. There are aspects where we probably let ourselves down a little bit in the autumn where we think we can be a lot more ruthless and efficient at, and those are the type of things we are trying to drill home at the minute.”