Peter Jackson column: James Davies can use Warren Gatland snub to star in Olympics

According to Warren Gatland, New Zealand is no country for young men to be initiated into the ranks of Test rugby, especially those of the back-row variety.
Despite the uncertainty over Sam Warburton’s shoulder and the unavoidable absence through injury of the country’s other outstanding No 7, Justin Tipuric, Wales will take off on their four-match tour of the All Blacks‘ kingdom without a second specialist openside.
England, heading off in the same direction at the same time, have decided that Australia most definitely is a fit and proper country for a back-row novice who just happens to be the youngest flanker in Wales. If Eddie Jones gets his way, Sam Underhill will make the long haul from Swansea to Sydney right away.
Should he appear during any of next month’s three Tests, the 19-year-old from Gloucester will be the first teenaged Osprey to win a cap since Wales took Tom Prydie to New Zealand for their last series against the All Blacks six years ago. The new boy, then 18, started both Tests on the left wing and made a decent fist of what must have been a daunting experience but has hardly been seen since.
Unless he makes an improbable return, Prydie will be in growing danger of being remembered as the wing who flew too close to the sun, a latter-day Icarus. “New Zealand,” Gatland said after opting out of picking a single uncapped player in his 35, “is not the best place to be blooding youngsters.”
Maybe he had Prydie in mind; maybe not. James Davies and Ellis Jenkins, by some distance the best uncapped flankers in the country, suffered most from Gatland’s aversion to taking an auxiliary openside.
Davies, the 25-year-old Scarlet and younger brother of Lions’ centre Jonathan Davies, is less than three weeks older than Taulupe Faletau. One has played 60 Tests, the other none. Jenkins, the 23-year-old Cardiff Blue, has made a real impression as Warburton’s deputy in the Pro 12.
Had Underhill opted for Wales, not that there was any chance of his switching allegiance, and had he been eligible, Gatland would probably have revised his opinion on New Zealand, deciding that it was just the place to blood a youngster of Underhill’s potential.
Even Richie McCaw had to wait until he was 20 before the All Blacks considered him worthy of Test selection.  The Wallabies did likewise with George Smith, at 35 the English players’ Player of the Year.
Eddie Jones no longer needs convincing that Underhill is ready for elevation to England’s Grand Slam squad. Gatland, by contrast, is still uncertain about Davies, hence the player’s failure to make the final cut for New Zealand.
In doing so, Wales may have done him a favour. Davies, known as ‘Cubby’ in Scarletville where his older brother goes by the nom-de-guerre of ‘Jonny Fox’, is now free to concentrate on ensuring he joins the cast for the Biggest Show on Earth, the Olympics in Rio.
Davies had to make a choice, New Zealand with Wales or Brazil with Great Britain for rugby’s reinstatement, albeit in its truncated seven-a-side form, to the Olympics for the first time since the Americans brawled their way to gold against France in Paris almost a century ago.
Having made himself available for Wales, he can channel his turbo-charged energy into making the cut for GB when they more than halve their squad from 25 to 12. “Maybe, it’s a blessing in disguise,” Davies said on learning that he had been passed over for the Wales trip.
Since the war Welsh rugby has produced two Olympians, the late Ken Jones at London in 1948 followed some four decades later by Nigel Walker.  In what has already become the sporting year of the Fox, the Scarlets‘ cub could find himself in rare company as an Olympian.
When Wales take off for Auckland the day after their third crack at England at Twickenham on May 29, Davies will report for GB duty at the start of his alternative journey which offers him more than the possibility of giving Usain Bolt a run for his money.
Mixing with the best athletes from all over the world will give him the chance of a lifetime to find out what it takes to be an Olympian in a place like Rio. He just has to make sure he gets there.