Wales vs South Africa: Hadleigh Parkes to make debut on same day that he becomes eligible for national team

New Zealand-born centre Hadleigh Parkes will make his debut for Wales on Saturday in the autumn international against South Africa on the same day that he becomes eligible for the national team on residency grounds.

The 30-year-old Scarlets centre will start alongside club colleague Scott Williams, who on Wednesday announced that he will leave the club at the end of the season to join Ospreys due to family reasons.

Parkes, who was born in Hunterville in New Zealand, moved to Wales in 2014 after playing for the Blues, Southern Kings and Hurricanes in Super Rugby, playing 26 times in total and scoring three tries. Even though Parkes does not qualify to play for Wales until Saturday – when he completes three full years living in the country to meet World Rugby’s current regulations – Parkes has been selected by head coach Warren Gatland to start against the Springboks.

Another Scarlet who has been given the chance to impress is scrum-half Aled Davies, who will make just his fifth appearance for Wales, as Rhys Webb is named among the replacements after suffering a head knock in last weekend’s 33-18 defeat by the All Blacks.

“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,” Gatland said.

Gatland has a number of selection issues on his hands, with Wales losing a large portion of their squad to injury and their England-based players to Premiership Rugby’s directive that clubs should not release internationals for any matches played outside the Test window, such as this one.

Despite the ruling, Bath have agreed to honour a clause in their contract with No 8 Taulupe Faletau, meaning that the back-row is available for Wales selection even though Bath will incur a large fine for not recalling him, believed to be £60,000. Bath prop Scott Andrews, who is on loan from Welsh side Ospreys, is also retained as he remains a Wales-based player.

open image in gallery

However, there is no Ken Owens or Leon Brown in the squad, with the two front-rows ruled out of the clash with back and head injuries respectively, and Brown adds to a growing list of absent tighthead props with Samson Lee injured and Tomas Francis recalled by Exeter, meaning that Andrews will make a rare start. Gatland is already unable to call on five of his British and Irish Lions stars in Sam Warburton, Justin Tipuric, Jonathan Davies, Liam Williams and George North, and matters were not made any easier by the loss of scrum-half Gareth Davies and lock Jake Ball to shoulder injuries that he has been carrying through the autumn.

“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,” Gatland added.

“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 [Dacey], Scott [Andrews] and Cory [Hill] to start.”

L Halfpenny (Scarlets); H Amos (Dragons), S Williams (Scarlets), H Parkes (Scarlets), S Evans (Scarlets); D Biggar (Ospreys), A Davies (Scarlets); R Evans (Scarlets), K Dacey (Cardiff Blues), S Andrews (Cardiff Blues), C Hill (Dragons), A W Jones (Ospreys, capt), A Shingler (Scarlets), J Navidi (Cardiff Blues), T Faletau (Bath).

Replacements: E Dee (Dragons), W Jones (Scarlets), R Jones (Ospreys), S Davies (Cardiff Blues), D Lydiate (Ospreys), R Webb (Ospreys), R Patchell (Scarlets), O Watkin (Ospreys)