Warren Gatland admits to Cory Hill mistake as details of captaincy U-turn come to light

Wales head coach Warren Gatland has held his hand up that he made a mistake naming Cory Hill as captain for the final tour fixture, against the Reds on Friday.

Hill pulled out of the game shortly before kick-off with Dafydd Jenkins coming into the team in the number five shirt and Dewi Lake taking a spot on the replacements bench.

The lock’s decision was made for “personal reasons” which led to speculation that it was due to the fallout from Gatland naming him as Wales skipper earlier in the week.

Pulled out of game

That has proved to be the case as social media and the team announcement press conference was dominated by an incident that Hill was involved in three years ago.

Hill was named among a group of individuals that damaged a woman’s house in May 2021. He wasn’t charged by police and apologised at the time through a representative.

“Cory came to me and said for personal reasons he was pulling out of the match, so I had to respect the decision he made to do that,” Gatland said after the 36-35 victory.

“Look, I put my hand up and say I probably shouldn’t have put him in that position.

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“What he’s been doing out here in terms of experience, it was a rugby decision that I made.

“It probably doesn’t help when you do get some negativity thrown at you. It makes things difficult.

“I probably could have negated that by not selecting him in that position. I need to hold my hand up in terms of that.

“What I can say is that he has been absolutely brilliant since he has been out here in terms of his leadership, his experience, how he has helped and worked with the young players.

“I probably looked at it from a rugby decision and didn’t appreciate there was going to be some negativity about making that call. I probably underestimated some of that.

“There are a lot of sports people in the past that have had similar situations and for whatever reason are back in the fold.

“I think you need to realise that I thought he was brilliant on Wednesday, that he was genuine in his apology for something that happened over three years ago.

“The facts are that he wasn’t arrested, he wasn’t charged, but he has put his hand up and was genuine about the fact that he had made a mistake.”

Wales managed to win their first game of the year on Friday as they overcame the Reds in dramatic fashion in Brisbane, this coming after their 2-0 series loss to the Wallabies.

Archie Griffin, Regan Grace, Rio Dyer, Christ Tshiunza and Nick Tompkins scored tries for Wales before replacement Kieran Hardy’s late crossing proved the game winner.

“Regan finished the try exceptionally well,” Gatland said of the rugby league convert.

“The thing that impressed me about him is you can see he has played at the very highest level because he made some really good decisions defensively and some good reads as well. I think he will only get better as a rugby player.

“They kept coming back at us, but the players showed some real character. I believe this is going to be a good team, we just need a little bit of time together.”

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