Wales today called the Gloucester captain, Gareth Delve, into the squad for Saturday's Six Nations encounter against Ireland at Croke Park. The 27-year old No8, who is considering offers from Melbourne Rebels and Cardiff Blues, has not featured in the national set-up since opting out of last summer's tour to north America.
The Wales captain, Ryan Jones, has been having treatment on a calf strain and Jonathan Thomas, who played at blindside flanker against France in the last round, may return to the second row with Deiniol Jones ruled out of the final two matches with a rib injury.
"We have been keeping an eye on Gareth in the last few weeks," said the Wales attack coach, Neil Jenkins. "He has been in the squad before and he is a strong ball-carrier. He will be a good addition to the squad. Ryan has had a few issues with his calf and he had a light load in training last week when the emphasis was on rehab and treatment.
"We think Ryan will be fine for Saturday, but there is a slight doubt and we have to cover all bases. If he does not come through this week, Gareth would be in a position to come into the team."
Wales name their side tomorrow with the Lions hooker Matthew Rees in line for a place in the match 22 for the first time this year after recovering from a groin injury while the scrum-half Mike Phillips reported fit after yesterday starting his first match for nearly five months when the Ospreys lost in Edinburgh.
Wales need to beat Ireland to avoid being embroiled in a scrap to avoid the wooden spoon on the final weekend, but Jenkins said they would not be abandoning their swashbuckling approach even though mistakes cost them against England and France.
"We have started games slowly, but you have to put things into perspective," said Jenkins. "We are a very fit side and very strong in the last 30 minutes. France found the tempo and pace quite difficult even after half an hour: we just made a couple of errors that cost us the game. We are not that far away having played some great rugby. We like to play in a certain way. It is entertaining but we want to win games as well. It is about making the right calls at the right time and avoiding the mistakes that force us to chase matches."
Jonathan Thomas believes that Wales's experience this season, which has seen them undaunted by adversity and having to contend with a number of injuries, will benefit them at next year's World Cup.
"It has been incredibly frustrating because we could have won the first three games‚" he said. "Despite the table, we are in a good position: we know we can turn it on and play good rugby against any side in the world. We are in charge of our own destiny and we are not far away from being a top side.
"We ran a strong France side ragged and they were blowing after 35 minutes, physically gone after 55. France had a great defensive record and they are an incredibly physical side who smashed Ireland at home – we ran them ragged in the second-half and they were physically gone.
"We can't talk ourselves up too much because we lost the game and there are factors in our game we need to iron out. Warren Gatland [the coach] has tried to instil mental toughness in us. We have a never-say-die attitude and always believe we are going to win, no matter who we play.
"We have missed our injured players, but we have shown we have strength in depth. We can take a lot from that looking ahead to the World Cup. We will benefit in the long term because it is about having a good squad of players. When England won the World Cup in 2003 they had a top first XV and a great top second XV."
