Foreign-based Wales players could miss Australia Test

From the BBC website:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/welsh/15629017.stm

Good news. We have better players than the three in France anyway.

I think we all knew that there was no way any of these players would be available so soon after coming back from the WC.

Only Mike Phillips is a first choice player out of those in France and England and for this game I would not have played him anyway. Perfect opportunity for Lloyd Williams to get more international experience.

I was going to post this over on the International section under the poor journalism thread lol.

AS Doc said out of the players quoted only Phillips could warrant a start at the moment.

Hook - Poor WC and not a guaranteed starter at 10, centre or XV.

Byrne - Poor WC and Halfpenny now our 1st choice XV.

Powell - Possible squad/bench slot but 8 and bench likely to be covered by Faletau and R Jones or maybe have a look at Turnbull or McCusker.

Mitchell - Gatland prefered James at T/Head when he did have option to pick Mitchell so unlikely he would be involved with James covering from bench.

Peel - Wasnt even in WC squad so unlikely to feature for Wales again IMO.

Again very poor journalism as its hardly a shock

It's true that it's hardly a shock - most rugby fans knew the deal already. I'm glad it means Lloyd Williams is likely to start, I'd prefer him to be our first-choice scrum half for the Six Nations. Mike Phillips has his strengths but they're outweighed by his weaknesses. Lloyd Williams is a better scrum half.

What happened to Richie Rees as scrumhalf for Wales?

Anyway, it seems Wales have enough coverage for these three players, so I'm not worried about it.

Cari, i think Rees was one of those players who were thrown on the scrap heap after the Fiji draw...along with Biggar.

Won't be long until he is behind Lloyd Williams at the blues, Baber & Burnell seem to be trusting our young players and wouldn't be surprised if lloyd becomes our starting 9. Which i approve of, he has come on leaps and bounds in the last year.

Rees missed out on alot after that ridiculous banning for pushing some dude out of his face.