Peter Jackson: Threadbare Wales are on a wing and a prayer

Wales will go into their annual home bash at the Southern Hemisphere down to the bare bones in specialist wings. They have picked just two for arguably the most punishing four weeks of the year – George North and Eli Walker. The former, 6ft 4in and 17st 2lb, is a superheavyweight in every sense; the latter, four inches shorter and four stone lighter, a comparative bantamweight.
In three block-busting years North, below, has established himself as a gigantic figure, a double Six Nations’ gold medallist and winning Test Lion. Walker, through no fault of his own, is a Test novice who has not yet had a chance to show what he can do at the highest level, an opening denied him last season by injury.
Remarkably given the disparity in their status, both are only 21. Even more remarkably, North, 34 Tests already to his name, is the younger of the two, if only by a month.
Instead of picking a third bona fide wing, Warren Gatland has opted for the Scarlets’ Liam Williams. Capped on the left wing against the All Blacks last year, he has played all his rugby for the Scarlets this season at full-back, appearing there in a starring role against Racing Metro last week.
Leigh Halfpenny, a wing by trade before turning himself into the best No.15 in the world, could also be moved in an emergency, a scenario which offers one explanation for the Welsh management deciding against discarding James Hook as they had planned.
Gatland, of course, had been confronted by the issue of adequate wing replacements before Alex Cuthbert damaged his ankle badly enough to eliminate him from all four matches next month. In recent seasons his response was to chuck some very callow youths in at the deep end.
All three were 18 when they found themselves threshing about in the maelstrom of Test rugby – Tom Prydie (against Italy in 2010), Harry Robinson (against the Barbarians last June) and Dafydd Howells (against Japan in Osaka four months ago).
In retrospect, Prydie’s premature exposure to the Test arena has not done much for his career.  Since then he has left the Ospreys to try his hand at Wasps before returning to Wales with the Dragons but now, at the ripe old age of almost 22, he is clearly not considered good enough.
Had he been, Gatland would have picked him as his third wing once Cuthbert had been eliminated. Prydie, remember, a try-scorer against Japan in Tokyo last summer not that it saved Wales from losing, had therefore been the man in possession of the No.11 jersey, not that it counted for anything.
This time Gatland has clearly decided against chucking another novice into the fray ahead of his time. Jordan Williams, a fly-half who made a name for himself at full-back during the Junior World Cup last summer, has been left alone to continue his eye-catching apprenticeship on the Scarlets’ left wing.
Others have come and gone without appearing long enough to leave a mark.   Will Harries, a Dragon in the same physical mould as Shane Williams, managed two very brief appearances as a substitute and one start against the best in the business, the All Blacks in Hamilton.
Harries has not been seen at Test level in the three years since.    Tom James, the Blues wing who not unreasonably questioned the point of being thrown into a Test in South Africa with two minutes left, has been missing now for almost four years.
With Shane working his magic on one wing and Halfpenny the sorcerer’s apprentice on the other wing, James found himself upstaged briefly by Prydie and even more briefly by Harries before North’s emergence changed the landscape.
Aled Brew, part of the World Cup squad in New Zealand, is one casualty. He has hardly been seen since and has all but disappeared off the radar since joining Biarritz on their slide towards relegation from the Top 14.
Two of the wings capped pre-North have been eliminated by broken legs. Morgan Stoddart, as under-rated a player as any under Gatland, never recovered from his double fracture against England at Twickenham before the last World Cup.
Chris Czekaj did play again after breaking his leg in Australia but has not been seen on Wales duty since coming off the bench against the Springboks in Cardiff three years ago.  When they return on November 9, Wales will go with North on the right wing, Williams or Walker on the left.
A paucity of plausible contenders will leave Wales hoping that the few they do have are still in one piece when the Wallabies pitch up on November 30 by which time South Africa, Tonga and Argentina will have tested Welsh durability to the limit.