Today's rugby news as Warren Gatland sweats over nine players
These are your rugby headlines on Friday, January 24.
Gatland sweats over nine players
Warren Gatland will be praying for no last minute injury blows as nine Wales squad members take to the field for their English club sides this weekend.
With less than a week to go until Gatland's men kick off their Six Nations campaign away to France, over a quarter of the squad will be in action in the Gallagher Premiership. While Wales-based players have not been released back to their regions this weekend, all involved with the Welsh squad will be hoping those across the border come through unscathed.
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Five of Wales' squad will be involved at Kingsholm as Gloucester take on Leicester Tigers on Saturday afternoon. Freddie Thomas and Tomos Williams are starting for the hosts, with wing Josh Hathaway amongst the replacements, while both Nicky Smith and Tommy Reffell are in the Tigers' starting pack.
Three more are in action down in Exeter later that day, with Dafydd Jenkins leading the Chiefs against Saracens, who include both Liam Williams and Nick Tompkins in their matchday squad. While Williams is starting at full-back, centre Tompkins is set to feature in a new position having being named on the bench as cover for the back row.
WillGriff John starts for Sale in their clash with Bath on Sunday, with Jenkins' teammate Christ Tshiunza the only one of Wales' England-based players not involved this weekend.
'Business as usual' for Ireland
By Ed Elliot, PA
Forwards coach Paul O'Connell said it is "business as usual" for Ireland in the absence of Andy Farrell as he reported a clean bill of health ahead of their Guinness Six Nations title defence.
The back-to-back reigning champions, who are at a warm-weather training camp in Portugal, launch their championship campaign next Saturday when England visit the Aviva Stadium in Dublin.
With head coach Farrell having temporarily stepped aside to focus on leading this summer's British and Irish Lions tour of Australia, defence coach Simon Easterby has taken over on an interim basis.
Ireland have 32 of their 36-man squad in Quinta do Lago, in addition to development players Hugh Cooney, Cathal Forde, James McNabney and Ben Murphy.
Connacht scrum-half Caolin Blade and Leinster trio James Lowe, Dan Sheehan and Jack Boyle are set to join the group following this weekend's United Rugby Championship fixtures.
"Everyone's been training. No one is sitting out any training, which is good," O'Connell told reporters on Friday. "It has been business as usual really. We've a way of doing things before the first game.
"We know there's generally 12 days before we play and it's always a challenge to be ready to play a big international rugby match with only 12 days of preparation. We have a bit of a formula which we stick to, we tweak it a little bit to keep it fresh. But it's been good."
Ireland are bidding to become the first country to win the Six Nations three years in a row and are regarded as marginal title favourites by bookmakers.
Yet performances during the autumn, which brought wins over Argentina, Fiji and Australia following an opening defeat to New Zealand, were inconsistent. O'Connell said players are being eased back into camp before beginning to focus on specific areas of improvement.
"In the first week you're just trying to reintroduce our way of doing things and reintroduce our language and get players comfortable with that," he said. "For us (as coaches), we've been living in this game since the end of the autumn internationals, the players have had a busy period of European games, big inter-provincial games.
"Sometimes you want to come in as a coach and start working really hard straight away so we've got to be a little bit aware of where they're coming from, the language they have in their heads from their provinces, and we have to drip-feed in what we're doing here.
"So that's generally what the first week is for us, it's getting back to our way of doing things, which very often isn't too dissimilar to the provinces but there are subtle differences and differences in the language."
Scarlets' visitors upbeat despite absentees
By Anthony Brown, PA
Sean Everitt has called on Edinburgh to overcome the absence of a raft of Scotland internationals and maintain their recent momentum away to Scarlets in the United Rugby Championship on Saturday.
The men from the Scottish capital head to Wales in upbeat mood after defeating Glasgow in the league and then Vannes and Black Lion in the Challenge Cup.
Pierre Schoeman, Ewan Ashman, Dave Cherry, Grant Gilchrist, Marshall Sykes, Jamie Ritchie, Duhan van der Merwe, Darcy Graham and Luke Crosbie, who is carrying a back injury, are all unavailable as they gear up for the start of the Guinness Six Nations with Scotland.
Matt Currie is the only player named in Gregor Townsend's initial 37-man squad for the championship who will feature for Edinburgh this weekend. Harry Paterson, Ben Healy, Ali Price, Hamish Watson and Sam Skinner - all of whom missed out on a national team call-up - also start for Everitt's side in Llanelli.
"This is a really important match with such a tightly contested log," Everitt told the Edinburgh website. "Every team in this competition is so competitive and we know that it's going to be a battle in Llanelli.
"Scarlets are a team we have a huge amount of respect for and they've been really strong at home. However we're starting to build a bit of momentum with three wins on the bounce and we go into the match with plenty of confidence."
