Barbarians Preview

By Editor
May 29 2003

The likely prospect of a sixth straight defeat for Steve Hansen on Saturday, will only add to the Kiwi's problems ahead of a summer tour already doomed.

 After one of the worst six nations campaigns in living memories, backed up the non event that has been the Welsh domestic season, not to forget the infamous "Jail" of Glamorgan. The Baa-baas however in contrast are in top form having taken England's second team apart and beaten Scotland.

Hansen has been promising a "big" performance from his Welsh side, lets just hope they save it for two weeks time. We desperately need a win sooner or later, however I don't think it really matters about the result on Saturday, performance is what we should be looking at. It's also a chance to try out a few new players such as Garan Evans, Alix Popham and Adam Jones who all start. Young prospects Gareth Delve and Mike Phillips are on the bench, along with with the return of an in form Chris Wyatt.

Most of the press have been concentrating on another member of the bench. Your probably all sick by now of "Jinks fever", so I'll only give the Ginger monster a brief mention. Jinks's selection only goes to prove how desperate we are to remember the past, at a time when we should be looking to the future, preferably in about five months time. But I being more of a realist would say four years would be more of a likely goal. Hansen really doesn't like Ceri Sweeney does he? What chance does he have to impress ahead of Australia, when some who won't even be there gets the nod. It's sad to say that most of a disappointing crowd of about 15,000 will only be there to see one man, but to be completely honest the team hardly deserves our support.

Their is a great deal of apathy I feel in Welsh rugby, it's difficult to get behind a team that doesn't exactly ooze passion. The absence players who played with that passion, really are missed greatly. Dwayne Peel is hardly a welcome alternative to Rob Howley, but we've been down this road time and time again. A good pointer for the outcome of the match could be last years meeting between the two sides, actually not really. I care to forget how bad we were in that second half. Should be nice weather though.

Team For Barbarians

1. Iestyn Thomas 2. Robin McBryde 3. Adam Jones 4. Vernon Cooper 5. Gareth Llewellyn 6. Colin Charvis 7. Martyn Williams 8. Alix Popham

9. Dwayne Peel 10. Stephen Jones 11. Rhys Williams 12. Iestyn Harris 13. Mark Taylor 14. Gareth Thomas 15. Garan Evans

Bench: Mefin Davies , Ben Evans , Gareth Delve , Chris Wyatt , Mike Phillips, Neil Jenkins , Tom Shanklin