Wales head coach Warren Gatland has today named his 34-man squad for the 2025 Guinness Six Nations with key players returning: 5 Talking Points from Gatland’s Press conference immediately following the announcement.

Warren Gatland has named only two debutants in his Wales squad for the Six Nations which gets underway at the Stade de France on January 31^st in the tournaments curtain raiser.

Scarlets Ellis Mee and Ospreys Dan Edwards are the two uncapped players with Jac Morgan returning to Captain the side. Something that perhaps Wales had been lacking in recent times was experience but with recalls of Josh Adams (Cardiff Rugby), Dafydd Jenkins (Exeter Rugby), Liam Williams (Saracens), and Taulupe Faletau (Cardiff Rugby) who have nearly 300 caps between them, that should add something different to this bruised Welsh side.

1: “He’s 33 now by the next World Cup, he’ll be 36 is he going to be around in three years’ time”

One eye-catching name not to be involved was experienced outside half and Gloucester Rugby’s Gareth Anscombe, who has represented Wales on 38 occasions. He played in the Autumn, and that perhaps was his last ever runout in that Welsh jersey against Australia, where he kicked eight of his side’s 20 points on that day.

“We’ve spoken about ten and that’s been the position for us in terms of developing some strength and depth over the next couple of years and looking to short-term and long-term in terms of building some players that get some experience in that ten position. We know that Gareth’s got a lot of experience here. 

“He’s probably one of the things that we talked about, like he’s 33 now by the next World Cup he’ll be 36 is he going to be around in three years’ time for the World Cup and we need to really develop some options for us at that 10 position.

2: “In terms of strength and depth and we got some more options”, Gatland on debutants.

Dan Edwards has been immense for the Ospreys this season at outside half and that point can be backed up as he has picked up two Player of the Match awards back-to-back. Ellis Mee on the other hand you may have to make the argument of whether if Regan Grace didn’t get injured on the weekend for Cardiff in Perpignan would the 21-year-old be involved. Standing at 6ft 4in and joined from Nottingham Rugby in the English Championship, Mee has only played eight times for the Scarlets this season. 

On the two debutants Gatland started on Edwards, he said: “We’ve been impressed with him we were hoping to get him in for the Autumn. We were but for a groin strain and he picked up a head knock as well, so we didn’t get a chance to look at him, but we’ve been impressed with him in terms of the way that he’s played and he started to mature nicely into looking like a quality 10.  

“For us it’s a one position where we’ve spoken about trying to develop some strength and depth in there. And, you know, I think someone like him gets an opportunity to stake a bit of a claim and I said we have been impressed with the way that he’s played and his calmness and the way that he controls games. His kicking game has already developed in recent times as well. So, and he’s got a good running game too. So, you know, we’ve been impressed with him.”

Speaking on Ellis Mee’s call up, Gatland said: “Yeah, he’s exciting in terms of he’s got a presence about him, he’s quick and you know, good arial game though he’s playing on the wing, he had a lot of games at fullback as well. 

“I think last year he played 21 out of 22 games at fullback as well. So, you know, potentially he’s an option for us there going forward. Probably the back three has been a concern for us in terms of strength and depth and we got some more options there now and it’s good to see someone of the likes of Josh Adams back in contention too.” 

3: Valuable experience returning just at the right time? 

Wales knew the score after the 2023 World Cup in France where they knew they were going to be losing a vast number of experienced players and will have to go through that rebuild process again. Fast forward to today and Warren Gatland’s men are being questioned whether they can even win against Italy in Rome, so will this be a welcome return for these experienced players?

“Yeah, absolutely that’s kind of been the positive for us,” Gatland said. 

“So, someone like Dafydd Jenkins coming back, to have him bring back his energy and enthusiasm into the squad too, which will be a positive. It’s probably the first time for a while we started, we had some real sort of dilemmas around some of the selections and some good healthy debate around the team.

4: Selection of players playing outside of Wales could be costly. 

“We’re a little bit compromised in terms of the players playing outside of Wales when on the Tuesday and test weeks those English players and French players that have not been selected have to go back to the clubs on the Tuesday and that does limit your preparation. 

We don’t have them in the fallow weeks. So, we probably need to look at bringing one or two local players in during those fallow weeks to bolster up the numbers when you look at, you know, particularly in that lock position, when you’ve got Dafydd (Jenkins), Christ (Tshiunza), Will (Rowlands) and Freddie (Thomas) are not available for those down weeks, so yeah, that’ going to be challenging for us.

“So, it was just about us trying to get that balance right between what was the numbers of back rows and second rows. 

5: “Probably playing in France first up is not a bad thing for us to do.”

Wales travel to the Stade de France on January 31^st for the opening game of this year’s Six Nations and will then head for a training camp in Nice before heading to Rome to face Italy the following Saturday. 

On the tournament itself, Gatland said: “There’s always trepidation. You look back to the Six Nations last year when, you know, we were ahead at 62 minutes and they brought all their bench on, which had a massive impact probably in the last 15 minutes and we weren’t able to deal with the impact of their bench. 

“Probably playing in France first up is not a bad thing for us to do. They tend to take a little bit of time to get going in a Six Nations, so getting them first up and sort of a bit of a replica of what happened in 2019. So, hopefully we can get off to a good start.”