Welsh wings aim to seize greater prize

Their new gold shirts apart (which are, in fact, yellow and will make them more suited to cycling up the Champs-Elysées), Wales will have the look of a serious side against Canada tonight. Rob Howley, their backs coach, yesterday declared that it will very much be a case of, "Hands up, who wants to play against the All Blacks?"

The obvious answer to that will be James Hook as he continues his No 10 ding-dong with Stephen Jones. But in a side showing 12 changes from the team which ran South Africa so close last Saturday there will, of course, be 14 other shoulder-sockets in jeopardy as the race is on to display both their eagerness and worth.

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While Ryan Jones, the captain, is assured of his place a week tomorrow the rest are either wannabes or have-beens-who-wannabe-again. Nowhere, will the contest be fought more fiercely than on the wings. Indeed, the battle to shine between the returning speedster Mark Jones and the new kid Leigh Halfpenny is likely to be a lot more interesting than the confrontation on the scoreboard. "I've got a real fight," said Jones. "I can't rest on my laurels and must make sure I'm in good shape, play well and not give him too many opportunities. Leigh is certainly a threat."

Which is a lot more than can be said for Canada. Howley commendably tried to talk up the visitors' chances, dragging up "it's 15 against 15" and even holding up the wet weather as a great leveller (Rob, the roof is closed), but a re-run of the remarkable scenes of 1993, when that dear porky-worky in the fly-half shirt, Gareth Rees, stood at the National Stadium arms aloft, is utterly unthinkable.

The Canucks have but seven professionals, of which only one plays top-flight rugby, and lost 55-0 against Ireland six days ago. They may have had the Dragons flapping like startled hens in their opening World Cup game a year ago, but there were some wily old Mounties in that Canadian outfit and they have been pushed aside to make way for youth. They are at the beginning of their education and will likely see the scale of their upward curve here this evening, if they did not quite get the message in Limerick. "We've a lot of young guys on tour for the first time, and we want to give them the opportunity to see high-level performance, take the experience on board and learn," is the way their coach, Kieran Crowley, is putting it.

As an ex-All Black team-mate of Warren Gatland, Crowley is aware of the demands of the man, if not of a crowd which could top 60,0000, and will be expecting nothing less than an 80-minute onslaught. Ian Gough, in the second-row, is one heavyweight who could barge his way into the New Zealand reckoning, while Martin Roberts will be looking ahead to the last match in the series against Australia.

The two scrum-halves above the young Scarlet in the pecking order, Dwayne Peel and Gareth Cooper, will be called back by their English clubs for that Test, so the Wallabies berth is all but his. Rarely will anyone win his first cap so confident that a second will shortly follow, but then Howley believes Roberts is equipped for it. When Mike Phillips injured himself at the end of last season and it dawned on the camp they were one political wrangle away from a No 9 crisis, Howley summoned the next best eight to clinics and marked them accordingly. Roberts came out on top. A gold star and a gold jersey was his reward.

Wales (v Canada, Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, 7.30pm): M Stoddart (Scarlets); L Halfpenny (Blues), T Shanklin (Blues), A Bishop (Ospreys), M Jones (Scarlets); J Hook (Ospreys), M Roberts (Scarlets); J Yapp (Blues), R Hibbard (Ospreys), R Thomas (Dragons), I Gough (Ospreys), L Charteris (Dragons), Dafydd Jones (Scarlets), R Sowden-Taylor (Blues), R Jones (Ospreys, capt). Replacements: M Rees (Scarlets), E Roberts (Sale), A Wyn Jones (Ospreys), A Powell (Blues), D Peel (Sale), D Biggar (Ospreys), J Roberts (Blues).

Canada: J Pritchard (Bedford); C Hearn (Baymen), B Keys (Velox Valhallians), R Smith (Calgary Irish), J Mensah-Coker (Plymouth Albion); A Monro (Colorno, It), E Fairhurst (Cornish Pirates); K Tkachuk (Glasgow Warriors), P Riordan (Univ of Victoria, capt), J Thiel (Bayside), T Hotson (Northern Suburbs), J Jackson (Stade Bordelais), J Sinclair (Castaway Wanderers), A Kleeberger (Univ of Victoria ), A Carpenter (Brantford Harlequins). Replacements: M Pletch (Velox Valhallians), F Walsh (Vandals), M Burak (Cornish Pirates), S M Stephen (Plymouth Albion), M Williams (James Bay), M Evans (Hartpury College), D Van Camp (Velox Valhallians).

Referee: S Dickinson (Aus).