Wales have announced a 54-player training squad for the Rugby World Cup; Joe Hawkins misses out following his move to Exeter Chiefs; Warren Gatland has also named 10 uncapped players
Last Updated: 01/05/23 3:17pm
Warren Gatland has announced his Wales training squad for this year’s Rugby World Cup
Wales head coach Warren Gatland has named a 54-player training squad for the 2023 Rugby World Cup.
After moving to Exeter Chiefs, Joe Hawkins misses out on the squad and is deemed ineligible to represent Wales due to having fewer than the 25 caps required if you play domestic rugby outside of Wales.
A raft of familiar faces return including Alun Wyn Jones, Leigh Halfpenny, and Ken Owens along with stars such as Will Rowlands, George North, and Liam Williams.
Gatland has also named 10 uncapped players with Corey Domachowski, Kensley Matthias, Keiron Assiratti, Will Davies-King, Henry Thomas, Teddy Williams, Max Llewellyn, Joe Roberts, Keiran Williams and Cai Evans included.
Twitter Due to your consent preferences, you’re not able to view this Privacy Options
Upon the announcement, Gatland said: “We’ve picked a large squad for a number of reasons. We will reduce the squad to about 45 before we go to Switzerland so there’s a bit of jeopardy in the first part of the campaign.
“It’s a great opportunity for some players that were involved in the Six Nations and some youngsters for the future to show us what they are capable of doing in the first part of the preparation.
“In the past we’ve prided ourselves on how hard we’ve worked and how fit the squad has been. So that’s the message to the players to come in and make a statement, work really hard, make the coaches sit up and take notice and get yourself in great shape physically.
“A lot of skill work needs to be done and there’s an opportunity to work on the detail you often don’t get wh …