Graham Price: Two major absentees from this Wales team and WRU must make this appointment
Here we are at the start of another Six Nations and I must admit the team I would have selected has players who have been left out of the squad completely.
Warren Gatland's selection does not include two players who should be there on form in Gareth Anscombe and Max Llewellyn. In Wednesday's press conference Gatland spoke about the limited options he has at his disposal at 13 - but what about Llewellyn?
He is an excellent 13, has been playing well for Gloucester and knows his way to the try line. I also don't agree with Gatland's reasoning for not picking Anscombe.
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When explaining Anscombe's omission from the squad he said he wanted to look at youth because the 33-year-old is unlikely to make the next World Cup. I'm sorry, but this should be about the present.
Gatland's comments are extremely inconsistent. The same could apply to a few other players who he has actually selected.
It’s not exactly joined-up thinking, is it? I would have thought that the here and now would have been more important if he was more concerned about keeping his job.
There are three Six Nations tournaments, a couple of summer tours and numerous autumn internationals to negotiate before the next World Cup. That is plenty of time to bring in new players.
It has left us a bit thin on the ground in respect of outside-half cover. Dan Edwards is the only recognised natural outside-half in the squad.
Although Ben Thomas has been selected to start, he has been selected in a position he doesn’t normally play in. As a natural outside-half, Edwards plays on his instincts and what he does at times is, basically, a conditioned response to do the right thing at the right time.
That is a quality of an outside-half that should be admired but perhaps that doesn't fit into Gatland's gameplan, whatever that is. I'm sure it will involve a lot of kicking though.
Gatland's comments when asked about the review into the performances in 2024 and his future also leave a lot to be desired. It appears that players giving their honest opinion, albeit anonymously, is obviously not to his liking.
It’s a bit ironic of Gatland, who is supposed to be a hard-nosed New Zealander. He is accusing the players of not being able to deal with criticism while at the same time showing how thin-skinned he is.
Alex King appears to have taken the rap for our deficiencies in attack. Robert Howley has taken over as attack coach, which seemed to be the fairly obvious conclusion when he was brought back into the fold.
It must have been frustrating for King to watch our opponents benefit from rapid recycling from the breakdown and thus creating opportunities for their attack.
The slowness of our recycling limits our opportunities for attacking rugby and our opponents are allowed bags of time to reorganise their defence.
Every team we have played has given us a lesson in the benefits of fast recycling. We have played against Fiji who, even when they were down to 13 men, successfully continued with their exact gameplan.
But the game is moving on before we have managed to catch up. In the autumn we saw South Africa evolving their gameplan by playing a quick offloading game.
It doesn’t matter who you have as your attack coach if you don’t improve your speed of recycling.
But I must say I am pleased to see that Adam Jones will be providing his contribution into improving our scrum, albeit on a secondment.
He has been doing good things in his limited experience in scrum coaching at Harlequins. His input before the France game may be limited timewise but hopefully it may be enough to make a difference.
The change of voice in the changing room can sometimes make a huge difference. It will take a while to get the scrum to gel but in the short term I hope it will be enough to give us a better chance in Paris and Rome.
However, by the end of the Six Nations I would expect to see a significant improvement. I just hope for Adam’s sake that this is not purely a PR exercise.
However, I believe Adam should be given a more long-term role by appointing him as the national scrum coach in addition to his role with the Wales team. His expertise would prove to be invaluable in bringing the best out of the regions' scrummaging and in developing the absolute basics of scrummaging of the next generation of front-row forwards.
The team for Friday contains a lot of experience, which is pleasing. It’s good to see Liam Williams and Josh Adams return to the team and Tom Rogers deserves his selection after his performances during the autumn.
I am concerned about the midfield. There is a lot of experience between Owen Watkin and Nick Tompkins but there are other options now. If Llewellyn is, obviously, out of the question at 13 then I thought Eddie James did well enough during the autumn to justify selection at 12 to form a partnership with Watkin.
The back five of the pack is as I expected considering the unavailabilities with James Botham being rewarded for his performances in the autumn. It’s going to be a huge task for our front-row given the size of the French front-row and their pack in general. The scrum is a fundamental part of the French gameplan that they have never neglected.
Henry Thomas has been given his chance at last and I will also be interested to see how Nicky Smith fares when he comes on the field later in the game. This will be the best scrum we will face in the tournament and if the front row can come through this test unscathed it will be to their credit.
My biggest concern apart from the scrummaging is the lineout where Gatland has selected Evan Lloyd over the far more experienced Elliot Dee. I hope we will not miss Dee’s accurate throwing into the lineout.
As has been proved too often our lineout throwing in has been our undoing at crucial times. We have used the driving lineout productively at times only for the throwing in to let us down.
France in Paris will be our most difficult game of the tournament and the fact that they defeated New Zealand during the autumn really indicates the task we face. However, it is important that we play well enough for us to use it as a springboard to prepare for our game against Italy which could be the defining game of the tournament for Gatland and Wales.
