The good news from the 16-10 win over Ireland in Dublin was that there were only “bumps and bruises” for the Welsh medics to deal with. There was also better news on some of the longer term injured players as they bid for inclusion in the final 31.
“There are just got bumps and bruises and Alun Wyn Jones coming off was precautionary really. We made a decision in the box it wasn’t worth him playing on and potentially picking up a tournament ending injury, so it was just a case of get him off the field and see if we could cope without him for the last few minutes, which we did,” said Gatland
“Jamie Roberts just got a knock in the ribs. Hopefully, we are relatively unscathed but those kind of things you don’t really find out until the next morning.
“Samson Lee is making brilliant progress. He has been involved in live scrummaging, he’s running – we just need to get him fit and, hopefully, he doesn’t break down.
“Liam Williams is ahead of where we expected him to be, but he’s still probably not going to be involved for the first game or two, or the first game anyway. The medical team are seeing where Gareth Anscombe is at and that’s a two or three week injury as well.
“We are going to have to make a couple of tough calls on players. You might be able to carry one or two, but you’ve got to be careful how many injured players you go into the World Cup with.
“The last World Cup we had a couple and we may end up being the same this time. We will sit down and talk and finalise things on Sunday afternoon.”
Aaron Jarvis, Scott Andrews and Tomas Francis have all appeared on the tight head side of the scrum in the absence of Lee, with the Exeter Chiefs youngster Francis earning his first cap at the Aviva Stadium against Ireland.
“It was a big step up from Tom, but he’s made amazing progress with us in the last six months. He’s only 23 and, as a coach, I don’t expect him to be any good until he’s 27 or 28, so he’s doing all right for himself,” admitted Gatland.
“When you think about where he’s come from, going from London Scottish to playing international rugby, there’s no pressure on him. It’s just about learning and I think he will continue to get better.
“Samson Lee comes and gives us some more depth and I thought Aaron Jarvis was really good around the field when he came on. We had worked hard on our set-piece after that first game and apart from one scrum penalty we were pretty pleased with the way it functioned.
“We were disappointed with a couple of line-outs, where we turned it over. We probably went through the calling repertoire rather than keeping it simple and we will hopefully learn from that.
The victory in Ireland was also the first competitive game for the remarkable George North on his return from concussion. He had the honour of leading out the side in Dublin to mark his 50th cap.
“We were confident that George was going to be right. I thought he did a good job going into the centre for us as well when we took off Jamie off,” said Gatland. “There’s got to be some recognition for George on becoming the youngest player in world rugby to win 50 caps.
“To take over from what Jonny Wilkinson achieved is an incredible milestone for a 23-year-old. The number of tries he has scored for Wales, something like 22 in 50 caps, is impressive, but there’s a lot more to come from him long term and I think he will put the setbacks behind him and have the impact we want at this World Cup.”
As to his final selection, Gatland knows he faces a tough 24 hours. He has 38 players to consider, but can only nominate 31 for the tournament.
“As a coaching team we’ve discussed what we think and we have probably got 24 or 25 players nailed down, but I haven’t even thought about the final make-up of the squad yet. Our whole focus in the last few days has just been preparing for the Irish match,” admitted Gatland.
“I really haven’t thought about what that final 31 is going to be at the moment. It will probably be a 17-14 split with three scrum-halves, that’s our thinking at the moment.”
