Wales vs Uruguay

First topic message reminder :


WALES vs URUGUAY
Millennium Stadium
Sunday September 20th @ 14:30

Live coverage on ITV and S4C


Referee: Romain Poite (France)
Assistant referees: Pascal Gauzère (France), Mathieu Raynal (France)

Television match official: Ben Skeen (New Zealand)



And so it starts.

RWC 2015, first up for Wales are Uruguay. A team of amateur players that are the lowest ranked team in the competition. They qualified by beating Russia, this is their third RWC. They have won two games previously against Spain and Georgia.

Wales are huge favourites for the game but as the Uruguayans are the weakest team in the group Wales actually have a massive pressure on them to perform at the top of their game and set a bench mark score, that should this pool go down to points, will beat the others in contention.

On the back of a disastrous game in Cardiff against Italy, Wales will have had to re-focus themselves for this game.

Wales have never played Uruguay before. Our A team played them once back in 2001 where a young Shane Williams scored two tries and Gavin Henson excelled at fullback for Wales to win 66 points to 22.

We have no idea what damage teams like England and Australia could do to a tired Uruguay team towards the end of the pool stages. Wales will need to put a cricket score on Uruguay to prove a point before going into our first major game at Twickenham.

Wales Team

Liam Williams (Scarlets); Alex Cuthbert (Cardiff Blues), Cory Allen (Cardiff Blues), Scott Williams (Scarlets), Hallam Amos (Newport Gwent Dragons); Rhys Priestland (Bath Rugby), Gareth Davies (Scarlets); Paul James (Ospreys), Scott Baldwin (Ospreys), Samson Lee (Scarlets), Jake Ball (Scarlets), Luke Charteris (Racing 92), Sam Warburton (Captain, Cardiff Blues), Justin Tipuric (Ospreys), James King (Ospreys).

Replacements: Ken Owens (Scarlets), Aaron Jarvis (Ospreys), Tomas Francis (Exeter Chiefs), Dominic Day (Bath Rugby), Dan Lydiate (Ospreys), Ross Moriarty (Gloucester Rugby), Lloyd Williams (Cardiff Blues), Matthew Morgan (Bristol Rugby)


Uruguay Team

15 Gaston Mieres, 14 Santiago Gibernau, 13 Joaquin Prada, 12 Andres Vilaseca, 11 Rodrigo Silva, 10 Felipe Berchesi, 9 Agustin Ormaechea, 8 Alejandro Nieto, 7 Matias Beer, 6 Juan Manuel Gaminara, 5 Jorge Zerbino, 4 Santiago Vilaseca, 3 Mario Sagario, 2 Carlos Arboleya, 1 Alejo Corral.
Replacements: 16 German Kessler, 17 Oscar Duran, 18 Mateo Sanguinetti, 19 Franco Lamanna, 20 Agustin Alonso, 21 Juan De Freitas, 22 Alejo Duran, 23 Francisco Bulanti.

LordDowlais wrote:

RubyGuby wrote:I think its best if we start with 15 players to begin with, 8 forwards and 7 backs.

D'you reckon. I know Gatland made some weird decisions during his tenure , but even he would start with that no. of players and the same split.

I reckon you will be spot on with that statement and everyone would have to agree with you on it. Well done.

Yeah what kind of idiot would pick a flanker in the centers......

LordDowlais wrote:

maestegmafia wrote:Rhys Webb said

"It will be a mix-and-match team. The focus is going to be mainly on England next weekend and so the boys not playing will be training really hard and chomping at the bit to get back out there and get playing again."

The focus should be on Uruguay THIS WEEK. FFS, when will we learn ? We do it all the time, underestimate supposedly weaker opposition and end up with egg on our face. They should never look beyond the NEXT game. All players should be chomping at the bit to beat Uruguay. We should be putting 50+ points on them, if we do not, then we might as well forget it.

Aye

Even our reserves should be chomping at the bit to put fifty plus on Uruguay and if they can't then we won't qualify from our pool.

So much negativity FFS and we haven't even seen the team yet. Gatland has delivered Grand Slams, Championships and a RWC semi-final and you're all whinging on about Uruguay!!! Get over it and enjoy the journey you welsh whingers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

maestegmafia wrote:

LordDowlais wrote:

maestegmafia wrote:Rhys Webb said

"It will be a mix-and-match team. The focus is going to be mainly on England next weekend and so the boys not playing will be training really hard and chomping at the bit to get back out there and get playing again."

The focus should be on Uruguay THIS WEEK. FFS, when will we learn ? We do it all the time, underestimate supposedly weaker opposition and end up with egg on our face. They should never look beyond the NEXT game. All players should be chomping at the bit to beat Uruguay. We should be putting 50+ points on them, if we do not, then we might as well forget it.

Aye

Even our reserves should be chomping at the bit to put fifty plus on Uruguay and if they can't then we won't qualify from our pool.

Things are getting really serious now, I agree with Maes AGAIN, Cuthbert and this.

Hear! Hear!

What a bunch of whingers.

The lowest Welsh score I saw over on the predictions thread was Wales 608 - Uruguay 38 (Uruguay to make a bit of a come-back at lunchtime one presumes which is fair enough if they're smart enough.)

bedfordwelsh wrote:Why are people so reluctant to play our strongest side, I know there's a risk of injury but that's always there even in training.

We cant just throw our first XV straight in against England without hardly any game time and there are a few new combos that need as much time together under game conditions as possible.

We are lucky (hopefully) in the fact that it's Uruguay first off so we can give them 40-50 minutes then rotate them.

Because beds the loss of one more key back and we are all going to be expecting a call up from Gatland. We just cannot afford to lose key players now so Biggar and Doc at least need to be preserved. WTF, with Uruguay that is 4 warm up mathces before the main event. Said it before and ill say it again, Uruguay should have been the England warm up game; put out your first team and bring on your bench early. But the Italian job was the undoing of that master plan.

So you would put them straight in against England with hardly any gametime since end of last season? Biggar and Davies need to start forming a partnership as soon as possible not try and develop in the game against England.

bedfordwelsh wrote:So you would put them straight in against England with hardly any gametime since end of last season?  Biggar and Davies need to start forming a partnership as soon as possible not try and develop in the game against England.

I agree but they had 50 v Italy under the cosh and have been in training for 2 weeks. It isn't like we are asking them to pick up the ball for the first time. (We're only asking Aaron Jarvis to do that!)

I know what you are saying beds and i expect you are right, but if we get one more injury to a key player in the backs especially we are sunk, I really feel that we over did it on warm ups and always regarded Uruguay as a warm up anyway. If anything i'd start with Preistland/Morgan and Williams/Philipps and end with Biggar and Davies for half an hour. Fact is we need a back up 9/10 partnership for the Fiji game because ei expect that one or both Biggar and Davies won't start that game.

LordDowlais wrote:

maestegmafia wrote:Rhys Webb said

"It will be a mix-and-match team. The focus is going to be mainly on England next weekend and so the boys not playing will be training really hard and chomping at the bit to get back out there and get playing again."

The focus should be on Uruguay THIS WEEK. FFS, when will we learn ? We do it all the time, underestimate supposedly weaker opposition and end up with egg on our face. They should never look beyond the NEXT game. All players should be chomping at the bit to beat Uruguay. We should be putting 50+ points on them, if we do not, then we might as well forget it.

+ 1M!


Cuthbert will probably be in then, you know, 'looking for his form' that seems to have vanished. And if the boys that are rested train really hard then I guess we're a good bet to win the world cup, because you know that when team Wales players 'show up well in training' they're an absolute given to start - but it's also a given that their out of this world training hardly ever reflected on the field of play! However I do like that Gatland's focus is more on winning every single game rather than just amass lots of points and hope Wal, Eng and Aus lose one game each. That SHOULD be the main focus.

Cuthbert always find his 'form' v weak opposition

Unless it's Italy. Before this tournament kicked off I had expected somebody like Amos or Walker to have ousted Cuthbert by now, and Cuthbert then be given the reigns to run wild against minnows Uruguay. Injury to Williams and Halfpenny, lads not being given an opportunity, and players training really good has seemingly prevented this.

mikey_dragon wrote:Unless it's Italy. Before this tournament kicked off I had expected somebody like Amos or Walker to have ousted Cuthbert by now, and Cuthbert then be given the reigns to run wild against minnows Uruguay. Injury to Williams and Halfpenny, lads not being given an opportunity, and players training really good has seemingly prevented this.

But i dont think that is how the warm ups were used. The first was a deselect and a chance for a last look and a high WASTE OF TIME

The second was superb and a must win. Now, that team that went to ireland and won hadn't played together the week before, with our consistency this 'need time together ' argument holds less water….we aren't England!

The third was unnecessary with uruguay first up. Fact is our first team is 95% already decided.

I agree that Cuthbert should have been ousted but we all know that didn't really get planned in because the plan was to have half and Sanjay on the wings so there was no pressure to find a front line replacement for Cuthbert

Yep, I've too been of the opinion that was a wasted game. We didn't use all our warm-ups wisely - let us hope bad calls end there, otherwise it's curtains for Wales .

lets hope not, my point is we can afford to risk a rusty 1st xv v England after the way we performed in Dublin. what we can't risk is another fricking injury before that game.

You might think so and we did do surprisingly well in Dublin, but me personally still wouldn't risk it in a world cup! It's erm....too risky.

Team announcement today...!

Anyone know what time???

I presume it will be midday.

Here's the Wales online link

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-news/wales-team-announcement-v-uruguay-10081410

It's announced at 10.37 and 12 seconds.

Luckless Pedestrian wrote:It's announced at 10.37 and 12 seconds.

Yes Mr Gatland likes to be prompt.

Last anouncement was awful, just as the first name was about to be read out there was a replay of the audio of the intro, that lasted perfectly until the last name had been read out...

Or was that just me?

BBC says it is a mid day announcement... Not long now..

Team vs Uruguay

1. James
2. Baldwin
3. Lee
4. Ball
5. Charteris
6. Warburton
7. Tipuric
8. King
9. Davies
10. Preistland
11. Amos
12. Williams
13. Allen
14. Cuthbert
15. Williams

16. Owen
17. Jarvis
18. Francis
19. Day
20. Lydiate
21. Moriarty
22. L.Williams
23. Morgan

Interesting, fairly clear second string with a lot of big names rested.

Surprised not to see B.Davies involved at all, don't think he has replaced Charteris as first choice so though he would be in the 23 for this game.

Also strange to see 2 THPs on the bench - I guess in case they have to cover there later with only 2 LHPs in the squad.

Decent team, looking forward to seeing Moriarty and Matthew Morgan come on and of course the Warburton/Tipuric partnership - Patience is needed and we mustn't try to force things early on as we did in Italy. Go through the phases, keep your structure and the gaps will appear. Good luck boys

do we think Roberts is carrying an injury? I am sure they just dont want to risk him, but is he fully fit I wonder?

VERY glad he's not risking too many of our 1st team. Interesting to see how our flankers perform, if they gel well both could be selected next week! Happy with this team, getting excited now!

Looks like a shoutout between Amos and Cuthbert for the England game.

If there is a centre injury, do you think he'll use Cuthbert there or Tipuric?

I was wondering that Chris. I'd say Amos to centre, Sanjay to wing, Morgan on at full back.

Do you think the players have any input on whether they play?

For example, if Biggar felt he needed 40 more minutes under his belt, would he have been included?

I recall Schmidt saying that he was going to rest O'Connell for the final warm, but was told by the player himself that he wanted more game time.

Happy with that team.

It looks like it has the legs needed to play a fast and open game...!

Excited to see warburton and tips again

chris_501 wrote:Do you think the players have any input on whether they play?

For example, if Biggar felt he needed 40 more minutes under his belt, would he have been included?

I recall Schmidt saying that he was going to rest O'Connell for the final warm, but was told by the player himself that he wanted more game time.

I have read a few times before that Welsh players have requested that.

I like that team. I am glad Biggar, Roberts, North, AWJ, Gethin are rested and not risked as all of them are confident players for you guys and can hit the ground running with little game time.

Gatland will have instructed the first 15 to get the BP and 40 points by the end of the first have and then I can see the front row, Warburton and Charteris being replaced for the second half with Moriarty going to blindside and interchanging with King 6 to 8 when needed and mixing it up. Morgan/Williams will replace Liam Williams/Davies by the 55-60 minute and its likely that Priestland will go to FB with Morgan and Williams really upping the ante with a view to crack the 80 point mark

My only issue is if Gareth Davies is your first choice 9 then surely the Davies/Biggar partnership needed more actual game time, or do you thing they have impressed enough in training?.

Or do you think Phillips will start against England with Davies on the bench?

Gatland wrote:Trained really hard.

When I seen that I stopped reading the BBC article.

flyhalffactory wrote:I like that team. I am glad Biggar, Roberts, North, AWJ, Gethin are rested and not risked as all of them are confident players for you guys and can hit the ground running with little game time.

Gatland will have instructed the first 15 to get the BP and 40 points by the end of the first have and then I can see the front row, Warburton and Charteris being replaced for the second half with Moriarty going to blindside and interchanging with King 6 to 8 when needed and mixing it up. Morgan/Williams will replace Liam Williams/Davies by the 55-60 minute and its likely that Priestland will go to FB with Morgan and Williams really upping the ante with a view to crack the 80 point mark

My only issue is if Gareth Davies is your first choice 9 then surely the Davies/Biggar partnership needed more actual game time, or do you thing they have impressed enough in training?.

Or do you think Phillips will start against England with Davies on the bench?

I agree with your concern regarding Biggar/Davies.

I thought one or the other would bench...

So the key players sitting this one out are North, Roberts, Biggar, Phillips(?), Faletau, AWJ, B Davies (?) & Jenkins.

Surprised Bradley isn't in instead of Charteris and Phillips, I think, has taken the role of Emergency 9 from Lloyd! The rest though will hopefully be fit and firing for the massive challenges down the road!

ScarletSpiderman wrote:So the key players sitting this one out are North, Roberts, Biggar, Phillips(?), Faletau, AWJ, B Davies (?) & Jenkins.

I don't think you can read into it just because they are not selected they are the key players.

Maybe Gethin these days cannot play 4 games on the bounce and with his experience doesn't need game time.

However Gareth Davies is young, fit but relatively inexperienced, so managing the game and giving him confidence against a lesser opponent is what's needed, The position of just throwing him into the England game could backfire and if he manages the Uruguay game into a BP situation by halftime then he will be bouncing and full of it for the next big game.

I think he is looking at the Charteris/Ball combo for future games, I can't see beyond AWJ/Charteris starting next game with Davies on the bench. Another good performance and he might just put Moriarty on the bench against England if he performs well in the first match with the Lydiate as the guy whose place is in most jeopardy, and if Tips and Warburton perform really well you could find a back row of Warburton/Tipuric/Faletau with Moriarty or King on the bench covering 6/8.

Don't see the point in King playing 8 really. Pretty happy by the 15, bar that and Cuthbert though. Not overly enthused by the 6/2 split on the bench either.

Not too chuffed to see that Gatland said there's not really any places to play for with next week in mind. That obviously means Hallam Amos is on a hiding to nothing this week as Cuthbert is bound to start (though that much is obvious anyway).

What do we make of Gatlands response when asked about whether places were up for grabs vs England? Could that demotivate those fringe players playing on sunday?

Risca Rev wrote:Not too chuffed to see that Gatland said there's not really any places to play for with next week in mind.

I find it incredible and beggars belief that an experienced international coach to make such a public statement!. There are a number of players who could be (to varying degrees) playing better for you Cuthbert, Faletau, Lydiate and Gethin and the likes of Amos, Tips, King, Moriarty and James must be secretly gutted.

I'm sure others have said it, but given the loss of Jonathan Davies, Leigh Halfpenny and Rhys Webb, Wales are fortunate to have Uruguay for the first game. Let's hope Liam Williams and Samson Lee come through unscathed and ready to face England.

hjumpshoe wrote:Surprised Bradley isn't in instead of Charteris and Phillips, I think, has taken the role of Emergency 9 from Lloyd! The rest though will hopefully be fit and firing for the massive challenges down the road!

Charteris is a key player and Davies is certainly not ahead of him. Without Charteris we can't win our own lineout ball often or defend an opposition driving lineout.

I see Liam Williams and Samson Lee have been chose for this first game. Surely that is a boost for Wales. Yes.

Gatland will tell the media one thing and his players another - When the feck will you lot learn. Amos and North are in pole position to start on the wings next Saturday by the way.

majesticimperialman wrote:I see Liam Williams and Samson Lee have been chose for this first game. Surely that is a boost for Wales. Yes.

Sometimes your analysis overwhelms me Maj - Yes I believe it is a plus but he said he would play them last week

mikey_dragon wrote:

hjumpshoe wrote:Surprised Bradley isn't in instead of Charteris and Phillips, I think, has taken the role of Emergency 9 from Lloyd! The rest though will hopefully be fit and firing for the massive challenges down the road!

Charteris is a key player and Davies is certainly not ahead of him. Without Charteris we can't win our own lineout ball often or defend an opposition driving lineout.

Agree totally there Charteris has to start

Just noticed No Dan Biggar.

I guess he is being wrapped up in cotton wool for the England game next week.

Mikey, I was responding to Scarlet's post above mine re. Bradley. My phone won't let me quote or respond so this may not have been obvious. I agree, Charteris is very important in our pack, bit surprised he wasn't rested with the others given our depth at 2nd row!

RubyGuby wrote:Gatland will tell the media one thing and his players another - When the feck will you lot learn. Amos and North are in pole position to start on the wings next Saturday by the way.

I hope so. Worried that Cuthbert will score a few tries against Uruguay, claim to have his 'form back' and then have England pick him to bits next week..

I guess so, but Charteris hasn't had that much game time so perhaps that is why he starts. Maybe AWJ, if recovered, should have been the lock on the bench.

I think it is pretty wise to rest all those guys, this is Uruguay after all. I just hope we don't take Fiji lightly either. I also hope there is no player-rustiness for the England game!

I think this team was probably a difficult selection for Gatland to make. He must know we have a serious lack of depth in some areas, therefore he cannot afford to lose certain players. He knows that, while respect must be paid to any opposition, Uruguay included, he can pick pretty much any 23 from the squad and they would in all likelihood get the job done. However, he also knows that there is a distinct possibility that points difference may decide Wales' fate in this group. To beat Uruguay by 40 points may not be enough, 60 points, 70??? Who knows? Wales are at a disadvantage imo playing the 'whipping boys' 1st up and the selection he has made is bold in that he is clearly targeting the next 3 matches more, hopefully winning them all, with his better players still standing! He may say there are no places up for grabs but you try telling that to Tips, Lydiate and Sam, or the two hookers for example! For what it's worth, I would have selected much the same side with just a few tweaks. Anyway, the team is there, they must go out and beat a hard working but obviously inferior team by as many points as possible and see where it takes us. Good luck boys, Cymru am byth!!!