Wales welcome trio to face New Zealand

Chris Beasley, Lloyd White and Peter Lupton are all expected to take part in Wales’ match against New Zealand, at the start of a Wembley double header on Saturday.

Iestyn Harris has dropped Aled James from the 17 that took to the field last Saturday against England. White and Lupton were named in the initial 19-man squad last week, but failed to recover from injury in time for the opening game at the Leigh Sports Village.

Wales assistant coach Barry Eaton believes both players will be fully match fit in time for Saturday.

He said: “They both missed out on last week’s game and we had a long day’s travel on Wednesday down from Wrexham to London which hindered our training schedule. They’re having extensive treatment and hopefully they will pull through and play on Saturday.”

Eaton also said that his side’s completion rate against England was poor, and that Wales will be looking to make amends to that stat. Wales started one set of six less than the home side last week, but had an 61 per cent completion rate compared to England’s 81 per cent.

Eaton said: “It’s an area that we want to improve on. We’ve been working on it and talking about it. We’re putting things in place with our structure with the ball. We need to make improvements this week to be able to compete with New Zealand.

“The match this Saturday is very big for us. We’ve a number of players who have never played at Wembley. It’s going to be an exciting occasion and everybody is looking forward to it.”

Wales 19-man squad to face New Zealand.

Chris Beasley
Andy Bracek
Lee Briers
Neil Budworth
Ross Divorty
Gil Dudson
Ben Flower
Tyson Frizell
Jordon James
Danny Jones
Craig Kopzcak
Elliot Kear
Peter Lupton
Christiaan Roets
Matt Seamark
Ian Watson
Ian Webster
Lloyd White
Rhys Williams