What a joy it will be to see Wales in action

So close to victory: Justin Tipuric goes past Henry Slade of England to score for Wales’ in the Six Nations’ 33-30 defeat

- SHANE WILLIAMS

So we can finally ink in some international matches into our diaries. Thank heavens for that! I don’t care where Wales end up playing Scotland, I just want to see my team back on the field.

For the record, it will have been 239 days since Wales went down to England at Twickenham in the penultimate round of the 2020 Six Nations and their re-arranged game against Gregor Townsend’s side. Can anyone remember such a huge gap between international matches?

Wales played 16 games in 2019 and had averaged 12 matches a year this century before the pandemic struck. The last time they went anywhere near this long without an international was back in 2000.

There were 225 days between their final Six Nations match on April 1 and their game against Samoa in Cardiff on November 11 in that year. And you have to go back to 1992 for the last time they spent more time than this out of the Test arena when there were 246 days between their final Five Nations game on March 21 and their only Autumn international against Australia on November 11.