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Williams and Holmes released by Wales
By PA
Liam Williams will feature for the Scarlets this weekend as the full-back steps up his fitness bid for Wales’ Six Nations clash with Scotland. Wales have released Williams for Scarlets’ Friday night PRO14 trip to Benetton, with the 29-year-old still shaking off a long-term ankle injury.
British and Irish Lions star Williams missed Wales’ World Cup semi-final loss to South Africa in October 2019 after suffering the ankle problem in training and has only played once since.
Now though, the former Saracens man will have a chance to prove his fitness ahead of the rearranged Six Nations encounter with Scotland at the Principality Stadium on October 31.
Dragons winger Jonah Holmes has also been released for regional action this weekend as Wales boss Wayne Pivac looks to keep his squad fresh.
“Liam Williams (Scarlets) and Jonah Holmes (Dragons) have been released from the national squad back to their respective regions for action this weekend,” read a Wales statement. “They will re-join the national squad on Monday.”
Pivac had last week been forced to rejig the 37-man Wales squad announced a fortnight after injuries precluded Ken Owens and Josh MacLeod from taking a sufficient enough part in training.
Pivac named his squad on October 6 – a group that included seven uncapped players – for the upcoming autumn campaign which commences with a friendly versus France in Paris this Saturday. However, the New Zealander was last week forced to tinker with his selection.
A statement from the WRU at the time read: “Ken Owens (shoulder) and Josh Macleod (hamstring) have both been released from the Wales squad due to respective injuries which preclude them from taking a significant part in training. Elliot Dee (Dragons) and James Davies (Scarlets) have been called into the squad.”
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Stephen Larkham, Mick Byrne, Scott Wisental, Ben Mowen, Les Kiss, Jim McKay, Rod Kafer.
There are plenty of great Australian coaches who could do a better job than Schmidt.
Go to commentsThis piece is nothing more than the result of revisionist fancy of Northern Hemisphere rugby fans. Seeing what they want to see, helped but some surprisingly good results and a desire to get excited about doing something well.
I went back through the 6N highlights and sure enough in every English win I remembered seeing these exact holes on the inside, that are supposedly the fallout out of a Felix Jones system breaking down in the hands of some replacement. Every time the commentators mentioned England being targeted up the seam/around the ruck or whatever. Each game had a try scored on the inside of the blitz, no doubt it was a theme throughout all of their games. Will Jordan specifically says that Holland had design that move to target space he saw during their home series win.
Well I'm here to tell you they were the same holes in a Felix Jones system being built as well. This woe is now sentiment has got to stop. The game is on a high, these games have been fantastic! It is Englands attack that has seen their stocks increase this year, and no doubt that is what SB told him was the teams priority. Or it's simply science, with Englands elite players having worked towards a new player welfare and management system, as part of new partnership with the ERU, that's dictating what the players can and can't put their bodies through.
The only bit of truth in this article is that Felix is not there to work on fixing his defence. England threw away another good chance of winning in the weekend when they froze all enterprise under pressure when no longer playing attacking footy for the second half. That mindset helped (or not helped if you like) of course by all this knee jerk, red brained criticism.
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