Wales head coach Warren Gatland hopes that England ‘stick with’ Immanuel Feyi-Waboso after the wing chose Steve Borthwick’s men ahead of the Six Nations.
The Exeter Chiefs youngster was eligible for both countries but eventually decided on the Red Rose ahead of the upcoming international tournament.
Feyi-Waboso was part of an alignment camp last week and on Wednesday.
spoke ahead of squad announcement and referenced the treatment of Ollie Hassell-Collins, who was capped and then quickly dropped by
The former London Irish wing, who now plays for Leicester Tigers, has not been seen at international level since the start of 2023.
“I just hope that if they do select him that they stick with him, they’ve got a lot of depth in terms of that back three position,” the head coach told reporters.
“We saw that with last year’s Six Nations, they selected Ollie Hassell-Collins. He had one game, and now he’s been thrown out a bit like water from a bath.
“If he goes down that road, you’d like to think that they would stick with him.”
Borthwick openly admitted to speaking directly to Feyi-Waboso, but the Welsh boss did not try too hard to tempt him across.
“I didn’t personally speak to him,” he said. “Mike Forshaw (Wales defence coach) had a conversation with him and he had expressed that he wanted to go down the English route, so good luck to him with that.
“He’s definitely got some talent, there’s no doubt about it. He’s as green as anything. He’s obviously had an approach from England, and he’s decided to take that path.
“In saying that there’s a few Welsh coaches that when they heard he’d decided that, and he was born and bred in Cardiff; some of their comments weren’t that positive about him.
“If he doesn’t want to play for Wales, you can understand what the Welsh are like about that, so they weren’t too disappointed about him making that decision.”
Gatland has named a very inexperienced squad for the upcoming Six Nations, which will be led by 21-year-old Exeter Chiefs lock Dafydd Jenkins.
Injuries to Jac Morgan and Dewi Lake forced the head coach to find a new captain, but Gatland is excited by his potential.
“There’s a lot of competition in that second-row, but I definitely see him as one for the future,” he said.
“I expect, in the next three or four years, that by the time the next World Cup comes around, he’s going to be a definite starter, and he’s putting a lot of pressure on at the moment.
“We’re trying to develop a lot of the youngsters at the moment in this group over the next three or four years. If you look a the average age of the squad at the moment, it’s about 25.
“We want the squad to be mid-to-late 20s with players who have 30, 40 or 50 caps behind them and that’s part of the plan and part of the preparation now.
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