Toby Booth names which Ospreys player should captain Wales

Toby Booth has named which Ospreys forward should captain Warren Gatland’s Wales in the coming season. The regional head coach, who is leaving his post at the end of 2024/25, last year saw his club duo – hooker Dewi Lake and back row Jac Morgan – named as co-captains for Rugby World Cup 2023.

Across the five-game Welsh campaign in France, Morgan led the side on three occasions – including the quarter-final versus Argentina and the crucial pool win over Australia – while Lake was twice skipper. Both players missed the following Guinness Six Nations, Lake’s hamstring and Morgan’s knee resulting in Dafydd Jenkins captaining in all five outings.

Morgan unfortunately went on to suffer a hamstring injury and was ruled out of Wales’ summer games, enabling Lake to skipper against South Africa and Australia (twice) despite Jenkins also being involved. Now fit, Morgan has since been named by Booth as his Ospreys skipper for the 2024/25 season, but the coach believes Lake would be better suited to captain Wales.

Appearing on the latest edition of The Rugby Pod, he was asked by co-host Andy Goode if he could pick either Lake or Morgan as Wales captain, who would he choose. “I will actually answer the question,” he replied.

“I could easily dodge that question but I don’t have to be a politician anymore. I’d pick Dewi Lake as captain for Wales because there is less competition for his place (at hooker). The one thing where Wales are right now is they need a little bit of consistency and Dewi Lake can give you that.

“Jac Morgan, I have named him as our captain to take over from (Justin) Tipuric because he has got all the attributes – a lead-by-example captain, doesn’t speak a hell of a lot but when he speaks people listen.

“What a great compliment of our programme really if you think about the two people we are talking about come out of ours, and the previous lot (Alun Wyn Jones etc) have come out of ours and also Adam Beard.

“So from our point of view it shows how deliberate we have been and we have been deliberate about growing leadership here because it’s not going to happen by accident.”