Three new caps in opening Welsh match

Press, 10 January 1987, Page 21

Three new caps in opening Welsh match

NZPA-Reuter Cardiff Wales has named three new caps for its opening Five Nations rugby match against Ireland at Cardiff Arms Park on January 17. A wing three-quarter, leuan Evans, a centre, Roger Bidgood and the hooker, Kevin Phillips, were named in the Welsh side which will be captained by a flanker, David Pickering. Evans, the top scorer in Welsh rugby this season, replaces Adrian Hadley on the left wing. Bidgood partners the recalled Kevin Hopkins in the centres, while Phillips takes over from Billy James, who has won 18 caps in the last four seasons.

Only eight players remain from the side which lost 15-23 in the final championship match against France last March.

The team is: Paul Thorbum, Glen Webbe, Roger Bidgood, Kevin Hopkins, leuan Evans, Jonathan Davies, Robert Jones, Phil Davies, Paul Moriarty, Robert Norster, Steve Sutton, David Pickering (captain); Jeff Whitefoot, Kevin Phillips, Stuart Evans.

• A former Welsh half-back, David Bishop’s 11-month ban from rugby has been confirmed by the Welsh Rugby Union.

Bishop was banned by the union’s general committee last October after receiving a suspended prison sentence for assaulting another player.

In a statement the union said it saw no reason to “depart from or in any way vary the decision arrived at by the general committee of the union on October 4, 1986.”