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Depleted Wales mix it up for Springboks Test

Hadleigh Parkes in action for Scarlets
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Hadleigh Parkes will make his Wales debut as one of five changes for their final Test of the year against South Africa in Cardiff.

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The Scarlets centre will partner Scott Williams in the middle, while scrum-half Aled Davies replaces Rhys Webb at nine.

In the forwards, Kristian Dacey and Scott Andrews come into the front row, while Cory Hill is paired with captain Alun Wyn Jones at lock.

Head coach Warren Gatland said: “Saturday is an opportunity to continue to build on what we have done so far and round off the autumn campaign with a big performance.

“We have spoken about exposing the squad to Test match rugby and this weekend is a great opportunity for Hadleigh to earn his first cap and for Aled to make his first start of the campaign.

“We have had a couple of knocks from last weekend, with Ken [Owens], Leon [Brown] and Jake [Ball] unavailable but that just provides an opportunity for Kristian, Scott and Cory to start.”

Wales put up good performances in defeats to Australia and New Zealand either side of a 13-6 win over Georgia during their Autumn internationals thus far.

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Wales: Leigh Halfpenny, Hallam Amos, Scott Williams, Hadleigh Parkes, Steff Evans, Dan Biggar, Aled Davies; Rob Evans, Kristian Dacey, Scott Andrews, Cory Hill, Alun Wyn Jones, Aaron Shingler, Josh Navidi, Josh Navidi, Taulupe Faletau

Replacements: Elliot Dee, Wyn Jones, Rhodri Jones,Seb Davies, Dan Lydiate, Rhys Webb, Rhys Patchell, Owen Watkin

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Phantom 38 minutes ago
Nations Championship: 'The data shows the north has finally caught up with the south'

Fact: the gap between the North and the South has narrowed considerably - that I get. However, determining that only selecting only Home grown players or playing in the home country is is the optimal strategy is a bit of a toss up and highly reliant on the economies of the home union. I do understand that England and to a lesser degree Ireland selects home based only. The top 14 is a massive threat to their domestic product. France would probably not be affected (the money is at home). Fiji, Argentina, Samoa, Italy and you could even argue Scotland have only benefitted from this. Their players either go overseas to learn at higher levels (Fiji, Samoa, Argentina) or players coming into their leagues to strengthen the home product and their National teams (Scotland, Italy, Japan).

South Africa used to limit its selection to the home based players, but the reality of a weak currency vs what players could earn oversees meant that you lost access to your best players at some stage of their careers, with very few exceptions. Kolbe left SA as he was considered too small for International Rugby (yes coaches/selectors view), but ironically in France he forced selectors to notice his endeavors and select him. He is only reaching 50 caps now despite being north of 30 - granted rotation and the odd injury also played a role, but for the most part it is having debuted or becoming a regular so late.



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