LONDON – Lions’ trio Richard Hibbard, Mike Phillips and James Hook have been excluded from Coach Warren Gatland’s Wales Rugby World Cup training squad.
After an less than average performance against Ireland in Cardiff on Saturday, the kiwi-born coach hasn’t been afraid to wield the axe in dropping three of the most experienced players in the squad. The cut leaves 38 players to play for a 31-man squad that will be taken to the main show starting in just over a month.
Among the additional players cut from the squad are the lesser experienced Nicky Smith, Rory Thornton, Dan Baker, Rhys Patchell and Jack Dixon.
The exclusions of halfback Phillips and pivot Hook aren’t particularly surprising as they were predicted to not make the World Cup. However it will be the dropping of Richard Hibbard that will raise eyebrows as the hooker promised to bring a wealth of experience of 41 combined test matches to a relatively inexperienced front row. The hooker position now seems to be left to Ospreys’ Scott Baldwin, Kristian Dacey who made his debut last Saturday and Scarlets’ Ken Owens to battle it out.
As for the inside backs roles, the scrum half positions will now be contested by Rhys Webb, Gareth Davies and Lloyd Williams with the pivot position contested by Dan Biggar, Rhys Priestland and kiwi-born utility Gareth Anscombe.