Wales Team for Ireland

With the Irish line up unaltered the welsh team has been announced as:

Wales: Lee Byrne (Ospreys); Leigh Halfpenny (Blues), Jamie Roberts (Blues), Jonathan Davies (Scarlets), Shane Williams (Ospreys); James Hook (Ospreys), Mike Phillips (Ospreys); Paul James (Ospreys), Matthew Rees (Scarlets, capt), Craig Mitchell (Ospreys), Bradley Davies (Blues), Alun Wyn Jones (Ospreys), Dan Lydiate (Dragons), Sam Warburton (Blues), Ryan Jones (Ospreys).
Replacements: Richard Hibbard (Ospreys), John Yapp (Blues) - two from: Rob McCusker (Scarlets), Andy Powell (London Wasps), Jonathan Thomas (Ospreys) - Dwayne Peel (Sale Sharks), Stephen Jones (Scarlets), Morgan Stoddart (Scarlets).

There is a doubt over JT so Powell is in as possible cover. halfpenny returns from his injury dropping Stoddart to the bench.

thoughts? WUMS?

As a fan who is not a Powell supporter, I sincerely hope he gets nowhere near the pitch.
Gatland has missed a chance to get Adam back in ready for the France game, this is a failing of his, and we see it now, he should have been doing experiments during the AI's.
Mitchell is fine, but he is not Adam and while Adam jones is available I would prefer to see him on the pitch at some stage or another, to even think of pitching him straight into the france game is crazy.

adam jones is nowhere near ready for the ireland game. To be honest I would not use him for the France game either and let him get ready for the WC.

I would much rather see Adam Jones kept out of the Welsh team until the summer internationals. Gatland has said his body fat has increased which suggests he won't be able to cope with the rigours of an international match.

Let the Osprey's bring him back to fitness and make sure he is 100% ready for the World Cup.

We play South Africa in the World Cup - and that's the match I wan't Adam 100% fit for. I would love to see the Welsh scrum smash that to pieces.
As for the 6N I'm impressed how Mitchell has stepped up and am more than happy with him keeping his spot.

Good side. Exactly what I would have picked.
Now, if we
-Keep disciplined
-Make sure Shane/Halfpennys positioning is spot on to deal with the inevitable O'Gara-Bowe cross kick
-Get Roberts to mush O'Gara into a pulp

we should be allright.

Very happy with the team too - and found out this afternoon that I've got a ticket for the game as well.

The front-row has been a pleasant surprise. I thought we'd be hammered with Mitchell and James, but I think we are finally finding a bit of depth that has been sorely missed in the prop department for some time.

That was the great 6 nations try robbery writ large. how the hell did we get away with that?

Yes it was the great try robbery, but guess what it all evens out in the end.
Thought it a bit rich of BOD to say we "try" to play by the rules, surely everyone already knows that.