Jenks: We’ve got the talent

The Wales kicking guru believes his squad is overflowing with talent in the fly-half position ahead of the first test against Australia at the Telstra Stadium in Sydney on Saturday.

Hook, Gavin Henson and Ceri Sweeney, who joined up with the tour squad early this morning, are the three options for Wales in the pivotal No.10 role.

“The boys are working really hard on their game in training and we are blessed with a choice of three very talented kickers,” said Jenkins.

“Take James Hook as an example, he is such a talented individual and right on his game at the moment, that the best thing for us to do as coaches is just leave him to get on with it.

“You don’t want to create robots as coaches, you want to nurture talent and players like Hook do things in a game instinctively, we’ve got to make sure we don’t over coach and detract from that instinct.”

The world record-holding points scorer also doesn’t mind if any of his players miss the odd kick on tour as he recalls the day he missed seven kicks against Ireland in 1993 and believes adversity can turn good players great.

“I missed seven kicks in one game and it made me progress more as a kicker, it seems funny in a sense you miss that amount of kicks and your devastated, but it helped me in a funny way, helped to make me as a kicker,” said Jenkins.

“It’s when you have a bad day at the office that you find out about yourself, you soul search, look at where you may have gone wrong and get on with it.

“I changed my kicking routine after that time in ’93 because I felt I was practicing too much and didn’t really look back. But the real difference was that it made me look into myself, ask questions and decide if I was up to it – I decided I was. We’ve got some special talent in this squad that is undoubtedly up to it as well.”

The squad have been training in the salubrious surroundings of Central Coast Grammar school in Terrigal this week.