Wales name Robinson at centre

The 21-year-old Cardiff centre Jamie Robinson is a slightly surprising selection in the Welsh midfield alongside the 36-year-old Allan Bateman for next Saturday's rearranged Six Nations game against Ireland.

Robinson will make his championship debut in the Millennium Stadium after a couple of appearances as substitute in the Welsh tour of Japan, where he scored a try on his debut.

Although he is highly rated, this promotion has come sooner than expected, and primarily because the converted winger Gareth Thomas sustained a cheekbone injury in Bridgend's European Cup loss to Castres over the weekend.

All told, Graham Henry has made three changes in personnel, and three positional switches, from the team which started the record 81-9 win at home to Romania last month. With Robinson starting, Stephen Jones reverts to outhalf in place of the great white hope from Swansea, Gavin Henson; the Neath speedster Shane Williams is recalled on the left wing; and the experienced New Zealand-born flanker Brett Sinkinson is recalled at openside.

Sinkinson last started for Wales against England in Twickenham 18 months ago, after which his Welsh credentials were found to be false during the so-called "Grannygate" affair. He appeared as a replacement against Romania after just qualifying under the three-year residency ruling.

Dai Young will captain the side on his 50th test for Wales, and interestingly he is one of only seven players who were also picked for the original Wales-Ireland game in March last year which was called off because of the foot-and-mouth epidemic in Britain.

Thomas is the latest in a lengthy Welsh casualty list which has also ruled out five of the many wounded Lions - Scott Quinnell, Neil Jenkins, Darren Morris, Mark Taylor and Martyn Williams - as well as Ian Gough, while Scott Gibbs has retired from international rugby. However, the retention of Bateman and recall for Sinkinson means this is still a fairly experienced selection.

In a reversal of the Murrayfield trend, Ireland have won six and drawn one of the last seven visits to Cardiff, and Henry admitted: "It is something of a bizarre statistic. Obviously it is a record that needs to be changed."

Henry, too, is mindful of catching Ireland on the rebound from their flat 32-10 defeat to Scotland in Edinburgh last Saturday fortnight.

"I don't think that Scotland did us any favours for this game," Henry said. "Ireland will be on edge and will be much better than they were against Scotland. I think they found the weight of expectation a bit heavy in Scotland, whereas the Scots could just relax and go out to play rugby."

Meanwhile, the 22-man Irish squad came through their first day of training unscathed yesterday in Greystones and will unveil their starting hand today at Lansdowne Road before travelling to Cardiff tomorrow. All of this week's sessions are closed, and yesterday the Leinster coach, Matt Williams, was invited along to help with some defensive drills after previous overtures to the former Waratahs coach didn't come to fruition.

Other members of the Leinster squad were also brought along, as they and Williams will be again today when the Irish squad will go through some "live" scrummaging.

There are likely to be four, perhaps five, changes in personnel to the starting line-up which took the field against Scotland. In a move designed to shore up the Irish midfield defence, it's likely that Kevin Maggs (watched by Eddie O'Sullivan in Bath's win over Swansea last Saturday when the Irish centre scored a long-range intercept try) will be recalled to partner Brian O'Driscoll.

Peter Stringer seems set for a recall to renew his Munster partnership with Ronan O'Gara, despite David Humphreys' virtuoso performance for Ulster last Friday night. Warren Gatland has hinted strongly that Mick Galwey is set to start in the second row in the absence of the demoted Jeremy Davidson, while Simon Easterby's unavailability necessitates at least one more change in the back-row - liable to be the area of most debate among the management.

Mindful of a desire to incorporate David Wallace's ball-carrying ability from the off, the management may start him instead of Kieron Dawson, with Eric Miller recalled on the blindside, or alternatively play Wallace at number six in tandem with Dawson.

WALES: K Morgan (Swansea); D James (Bridgend), J Robinson (Cardiff), A Bateman (Neath), S Williams (Neath); S Jones (Llanelli), R Howley (Cardiff); I Thomas (Ebbw Vale), R McBryde (Llanelli), D Young (Cardiff) capt, C Wyatt (Llanelli), A Moore (Swansea), C Charvis (Swansea), B Sinkinson (Neath), G Lewis (Swansea). REPLACEMENTS: B Williams (Neath), C Anthony (Newport), C Quinnell (Cardiff), G Thomas (Bath), G Cooper (Bath) or D Peel (Llanelli), G Henson (Swansea), R Williams (Cardiff).