8 **^ Sunday 11 August 2019 The Sunday TelegraphKey clashes Head-to-head battles that will
be crucial to the outcome at TwickenhamBy Ben Coles
Sport Rugby Union
Rising star Adams refuses
to take his place for granted
M
ost Test rugby players making
their way in the game would
be pretty pleased with a record
of 10 victories from 11 matches, but
such is the winning mentality of
Wales’ class of 2019 that Josh Adams is
far from happy with his lot.
The former Worcester wing, now on
the books of Cardiff Blues, has been
the find of the past 18 months for his
head coach Warren Gatland since
making a 2018 debut against Scotland.
Adams scored three tries as Wales
claimed a Six Nations Grand Slam this
year and looks certain to go to the
World Cup in Japan, barring injury.
Still, the 24-year-old lags behind
several of his fellow young
international team-mates who have
never lost in a Welsh shirt. Adam
Beard (13 caps), Dillon Lewis (12), Aaron
Wainwright (eight) and Tomos
Williams (seven) are all unbeaten.
Full-back Liam Williams, meanwhile,
will go to the World Cup on the back of
a season in which he won 22 of his 23
games to seal three trophies.
It is no surprise then that
confidence is flowing through the
Wales camp as they prepare to face
England at Twickenham this
afternoon in their first World Cup
warm-up clash. Gatland has named a
very strong side with Adams starting
in the back three.
“We don’t want to lose a 14-match
winning streak, but you have to look at
the bigger picture as well with this
being before the World Cup,” Adams
says. “With the side we have chosen, it
shows we don’t want to lose. Warren
has shown faith in the Sx Nations
group and given us the chance to go
out and make it 15.
“Being relatively new to the squad, I
know I’ve got to keep on improving
and getting better. There are lots of
places where I can improve and I am
determined to be here for a while.
“I can’t say I am an established
member of the Welsh team yet. I feel a
lot more relaxed in the environment
and I feel a lot more comfortable with
the training.
“The minute you think you are
established and you put your feetunder the table is the time you can fall
away. For us to win the World Cup
we’ve got to have a good squad, not
just a good XV.”
Gatland will leave his role as Wales
head coach after more than a decade in
charge at the end of the World Cup
and his balance of world-class Test
experience and youthful vibrancy
could yet prove a recipe for success in
Japan. Looking further ahead,
Gatland’s successor, Wayne Pivac,
must surely be licking his lips at the
wealth of talent he will work with.
Adams is one of Wales’ best young
players, yet the only black mark on his
international career to date is a defeat
by England at Twickenham in
February 2018.
It means he feels he owes one to
their great rivals ahead of his return to
TW1 today. That is despite him scoring
a famous try against Eddie Jones’s men
in the Six Nations.
“My second cap is my only loss
playing for Wales in my 11 caps,” said
Adams as he reflected on the 12-6
reversal to England. “It was close and
we had a disallowed try from Gareth
Anscombe. You can um and ahh about
whether he scored or not, although
every Welsh fan would say he did. Sam
Underhill put in an outstanding tackle
on Scott Williams in the corner that
turned the game, but there are still alot of our boys who have been to
Twickenham and won.
“To be able to play in an England
against Wales game at Twickenham in
only my second match was really cool
because ‘HQ’, as they call it, is one of
the great sporting venues. Now I’d like
to go there and win.”
Thirteen of the 15 Wales players
who will start against England began
the Grand Slam decider with Ireland in
March and Adams is among them.
Jones, meanwhile, has named an
experimental outfit. Wales are unlikely
to make major changes for the return
game in Cardiff on Saturday and it
means that by a week today, they
could be 16 games unbeaten. It would
move them to within two matches of
the tier one record of 18.
Adams rose highest to beat Elliot
Daly and collect Dan Biggar’s cross-
kick to score the try which condemned
England to a 21-13 Six Nations defeat in
Cardiff in February. A repeat display
would do nicely for Adams, who – it is
hard to imagine – was let go by the
Scarlets and had to play for Cinderford
before making the grade at Worcester.
“I still get one or two asking me
about that try and it is nice to hear, but
this is another game,” Adams said. “It
is the big rivalry and it is something
we are all looking forward to after the
weeks of hard training we have put in.”High standards:
Josh Adams is not
satisfied despite
having a Test record
of 10 victories from
11 matchesWelsh winger is the find of
past 18 months, but he tellsAlex Bywater ‘ there are lots
of places I can improve’End of the Daly grind as England focus switches
U
nsurprisingly after a
dozen weeks of training,
England are itching for a
game. Full-back Elliot
Daly is one of those 23
players who will finally
get to give that urge an overdue
scratch today at Twickenham against
Wales.
“You always get to that stage where- I think Ken Owens said it in the
paper the other day – there are only so
many times you can run up and down
a pitch without playing rugby,” Daly
admits. “We have had the ball in since
day one, so it hasn’t been so much
running up and down. It has still been
tough, but you get to the point where
you want to get out there and express
yourself as a team and see where you
are going into these four games.”
England regrouped at their
Pennyhill Park base this week
following 12 days of intense training in
Treviso, but the camp did not pass
without controversy. It emerged this
week there had been an off-field
altercation between Ben Te’o and Mike
Brown, which Eddie Jones refused to
confirm yesterday.
The heat and humidity, designed to
mimic the conditions England will
experience in Japan, lived up to
expectations according to Daly,
particularly when it came to handling
catches under the high ball.
“The humidity was pretty bad. It
was a good, testing environment and
it’s interesting what the humidity does
to a ball where it gets pretty greasy
pretty quickly,” Daly adds. “To have 12
days out there and as many sessions as
we did was good.
“We are now used to that
environment and each other in quite
testing conditions. I didn’t get much of
a tan... but I’m looking forward to
going back and it’s a nice part of the
world.”
Eddie Jones names his 31-man squad
for the World Cup tomorrow but Daly
should sleep easy tonight, given his
seat on the plane to Japan has been
inked in for some time.
Daly’s past 12 Tests for England have
come at full-back, and he scored tries
in victories over Australia and Ireland.
The 26-year-old has always been
admired for his ability to play across
the back line but now has a defined
role in an England shirt.
“I know it sounds ridiculous but the
people playing aren’t really thinking
about [the squad announcement], it’s a
game of rugby we’re thinking about
now,” Daly says. “Maybe that is a good
thing, but you’re not solely going to be
judged on this game, you’re going to
be judged on the last couple of months
and what we were doing at the end of
last year. Everyone just wants to get
out there because it’s 12 weeks since
we last played.”
Whether that certainty regarding
Daly’s position continues when he
links up with Saracens next season
remains to be seen after he left Wasps,
the club he joined at the age of 14.
With the European champions Daly
will be competing for the 15 shirt up
against his opposite man today at
Twickenham, Liam Williams.
“[Liam] had a great year last year.
He’s a quality player. From the Lions
tour he has kept that form on for the
last 18 months, two years now. He’s
played really well for Sarries and for
Wales. He’s nailed down that 15 jersey
and it’s good to see him doing well.”
Daly’s respect for Wales and their
captain, Alun Wyn Jones, is clear.
Jones becomes Wales’ most-capped
player of all time today and left a
notable impression on Daly during the
British and Irish Lions tour two years
ago. Aside from Rob Evans, Josh
Navidi and Cory Hill, all recovering
from injuries, Wales are bringing to
Twickenham an impressively strong
side, featuring 13 of the starters who
clinched the Grand Slam against
Ireland in March.“[Alun Wyn is] a great player. He
showed it on that Lions tour and
showed it all throughout last year. He’s
a good leader as well. To play that
many games for your country is an
amazing achievement,” Daly says.
“I expected a strong side. I just
thought they would go pretty full
strength, which will be a good test for
us and the new lads coming in,
especially as we have not had a game
for a while now. Everyone is raring to
get out there and play again.”
No one more so than Anthony
Watson, Daly’s England and Lions
team-mate who has not played a Test
for his country since the 2018 Six
Nations. Watson is now over his
Achilles issues and returns on the
wing against Wales, with Daly and
Watson likely to interchange
frequently between their respective
positions.
“Everyone knows it has been a
tough year for [Watson]. He is back to
his best in training, tearing the house
down and cannot wait to get out
there,” says Daly. “It is brilliant to see
him back. He brings something to the
wing that is pretty X-factor. It will be
good to see him out there again on
Sunday.
“We are quite a fluid back line, so
it’s working together to make sure we
are in the right places for whatever we
are trying to execute.”
Daly and Watson were due to be
partnered in England’s back three by
Ruaridh McConnochie before the
former England sevens player was
forced to withdraw from the squad
with a hip injury.
McConnochie has been one of the
outside candidates to make England’s
final squad, with Daly revealing he had
been impressed by McConnochie’s
attitude in training since first linking
up with England.
“Knowing him for the short amount
of time I have, how he attacks things is
really good,” Daly says. “He has come
in and got down to it straight away, has
a good rugby brain on him. Wants to
learn all the time.
“Probably when he went to Bath, he
was not expecting to play as much as
he ended up doing this year and to get
that opportunity, and he has obviously
taken it and performed very well.”
This might effectively only be a
friendly but it certainly matters to
Watson after months on the sidelines,
and to those England players still
fighting for selection. A result against
the Six Nations champions would also
provide some welcome momentum.
“It matters quite a lot,” Daly
explains. “Obviously it’s not a World
Cup game, it’s a warm-up game but it’s
still an international. We’re at home
and we want to get that winning
mentality straight away and see where
we go after that.”After months of training,
the full-back is ‘raring to
play’ before World Cupbegins, he tells Ben Coles
15
14
13
12
11
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9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8Elliot Daly (Saracens)
Joe Cokanasiga (Bath)
Jonathan Joseph (Bath)
Piers Francis (Northampton)
Anthony Watson (Bath)
George Ford (Leicester)
Willi Heinz (Gloucester)
Ellis Genge (Leicester)
Luke Cowan-Dickie (Leicester)
Dan Cole (Leicester)
Joe Launchbury (Wasps)
Charlie Ewels (Bath)
Lewis Ludlam (Northampton)
Tom Curry (Sale)
Billy Vunipola (Saracens)England v Wales
Kick-off 2pm TV Live on Sky SportsLiam Williams (Saracens)
George North (Ospreys)
Jonathan Davies (Scarlets)
Hadleigh Parkes (Scarlets)
Josh Adams (Cardiff)
Gareth Anscombe (Ospreys)
Gareth Davies (Scarlets)
Nicky Smith (Ospreys)
Ken Owens (Scarlets)
Tomas Francis (Exeter)
Adam Beard (Ospreys)
Alun Wyn Jones (Ospreys)
Aaron Wainwright (Dragons)
Justin Tipuric (Ospreys)
Ross Moriarty (Dragons)Referee: Mathieu Raynal (France)
Assistants: Pascal Gauzere (France); Alexandre Ruiz (France)
TMO: Brian MacNeice (Ireland)TwickenhamOfficialsVenueReplacements
Jack Singleton (Saracens); Joe
Marler (Harlequins); Harry
Williams (Exeter); George
Kruis (Saracens); Courtney
Lawes (Northampton); Ben
Youngs (Leicester); Joe
Marchant (Harlequins); Manu
Tuilagi (Leicester).Elliot Dee (Dragons); Wyn
Jones (Scarlets); Dillon Lewis
(Cardiff); Jake Ball (Scarlets);
Aaron Shingler (Scarlets); Aled
Davies (Ospreys); Dan Biggar
(Northampton); Owen Watkin
(Ospreys).England WalesEngland head coach Eddie
Jones described Ludlam’s
journey to the top as
“fascinating”, and rightly
so, with the energetic
Northampton playermaking his Test debut
today after a breakout
season. Wainwright has
been one of Wales’s best
finds in the past year and is
yet to lose a Test.The two future Saracens
team-mates – how Mark
McCall fits both into his
XV remains a mystery –
line up opposite each
other. Williams hasJoseph is a familiar face in
England’s midfield but has
not played for his country
since the defeat by Ireland
in the 2018 Six Nations.
But there are few bettercentres in the sport
than Davies, coming off
another impressive Six
Nations, whose support
lines and defence at 13 are
world class.Lewis
Ludlam
Elliot
Daly
Full-back
Jonathan
Joseph
Aaron
Wa i nw r i g ht
Jonathan
Davies
Back row
Centre
will
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