RUDDOCK OPTIMISTIC FOR INVESCO PERPETUAL SERIES
His assertion last night was that his squad will overcome all injury worries ahead of the Millennium Stadium games. Hal Luscombe, Tom Shanklin and Gethin Jenkins are the only players entirely ruled out with Gavin Henson facing a battle to return before the final match against the Wallabies.
“Whenever we lost players last season, other players came in and performed superbly,” said Ruddock. “We lost Gareth Thomas, our captain, at half-time against France, and Kevin Morgan came on, played superbly and then scored a magnificent try against Ireland in the last game of the Six nations.
“We lost Hal Luscombe on the wing, then Rhys Williams, and Mark Taylor stepped in and played against Ireland. Colin Charvis was man of the series during last year’s autumn Tests, then got injured and Martyn Williams stepped in and was player of the RBS 6 Nations.
“I am not overly concerned we’ve got a great history of replacing players with other fine players. It is about ‘team Wales’ and being confident in our squad.
“Whatever happens with injuries, we think we’ve got a very exciting pool of talent available to us.
“There is huge strength in depth in a number of areas. Having said that, four games of this magnitude will test us incredibly.
“New Zealand are an improved side from when we played them last season. We are still kicking ourselves a little bit after losing that game by a point 26-25, we felt we should have nailed that game down.
“New Zealand pose a massive threat. They are there or thereabouts as the No. 1 team in the world at the moment, and their performances against the Lions and as Tri-Nations Champions showed they are right up there.
“We will probably have to go up about 10 or 20 per cent. Yes there will be a few cobwebs I’m sure, but if we can dust those down, get out and hit the ground running, then we want to continue our form. We’ve won our last eight games and we want to keep that going.”
