Lake on bench as Wales XV unchanged for Scotland

Men’s Six Nations: Scotland v Wales

Venue: Murrayfield, Edinburgh Date: Saturday, 8 March Kick-off: 16: 45 GMT

Matt Sherratt has named an unchanged starting XV for Wales ‘ Six Nations trip to Scotland, while Dewi Lake and Keiron Assiratti are recalled to the bench.

Lake, who captained Wales during the 2024 summer tour and the autumn internationals, was called up to the squad after recovering from a biceps injury.

He takes the place of Evan Lloyd on the bench, with Elliot Dee the starting hooker, while tight-head prop Assiratti is preferred to Henry Thomas.

Sherratt has kept faith with the side which showed encouraging signs of improvement in his first game in interim charge against Ireland.

And should there be no late withdrawals, this would be the first time Wales have fielded an unchanged starting team since the 2019 World Cup against Georgia and Australia.

“I thought across the board there some really good performances]against Ireland] and I’m obviously keen to let them go again”, said Sherratt.

“It was a cohesive as we could have asked for with the amount of prep time that we had, it’s a reward for that really.

” Dewi coming back in, he’s been captain of his country, captain of the Ospreys, a very good player, just having him back in training last week, you can see his quality very easily.

Will Rowlands will look to continue his return to form in the second row alongside Dafydd Jenkins, who along with Tommy Reffell are the only two survivors from Wales ‘ starting side who lost 27-26 to Scotland in last year’s Six Nations.

Reffell is the preferred open-side flanker option, with Aaron Wainwright once again named among the impact players. He is joined in the back row by skipper Jac Morgan and Taulupe Faletau, who this week said he had not given up hope of a fourth tour with the British and Irish Lions this summer.

Gareth Anscombe has recovered from a head knock suffered against Ireland to partner Tomos Williams in the half-backs, with Max Llewellyn and Ben Thomas in the centre.

Wales travel to Murrayfield propping up the Six Nations table with three defeats, while Scotland are fourth after their opening round win over Italy.

“This week we’ve challenged ourselves to keep improving”, said Sherratt.

“We want to keep the same intent and bravery as we showed last time out, but making sure that we are building on our game.

” The fallow week was difficult as we only had 13 or 14 lads in. I’d have loved to have that week to continue the growth of the team, but it’s just confirmed what I thought after the first two days, that they’re just a very good group, very, very coachable.

“This week has been a step-up in terms of what we’ve produced on the training field.

” The challenge the group set themselves on Monday was that they’re pleased with the performance but not the result, because they’re all competitors, we all are.