In the front row, there's plenty of potential, but a few of them really need to take it up another notch next season to give us some genuine depth.
At looshead we've got an excellent 'deputy' in Paul James, who's 31, so he should be fine until the next world cup. Behind him, things are a little less cut and dry. Ryan Bevinton and Rhodri Jones are the front-runners, but neither have found consistency in their performances. Bevington especially, goes from looking like a potential world beater, to being completely anonymous. Rhodri Jones needs a season to regain full form after a bad injury. Behind those two we're then looking at youngsters really, with Rob Evans at the Scarlets a bright prospect, although he too was injured all last season. The props involved in this years U20's side have promise as well.
We're OK at hooker imo. Hibbard is 28, so another 5 years? Ken Owens is imo one of the best hookers in the home nations, and was possibly a little unlucky not to make the initial Lions squad. Behind those two, there's Baldwin, Emyr Phillips, Sam Parry and Kirby Myhill. Phillips was disappointing in Japan though, and Baldwin can be extremely shaky lineout time. I'm very excited about Myhill, but he's going to have to work hard to break into the Scarlets team initially with Owens and Phillips there.
Tighthead: Craig Mitchell is a steady option. I don't think he's anything special, but should do the job when required. Scott Andrews seems to be next in line, but I still have severe doubts about his scrummaging ability. Samson Lee is the one imo. He may have struggled at times last season for the Scarlets, but what 20y/o tighthead doesn't? He's a better scrummager than Adam Jones was at his age, in fact he's a better scrummager than any Welsh tighthead I can remember at his age. He ended last season as first choice for the Scarlets, so I'd expect that to continue this season, so he won't be short on gametime. He won't be ready for international rugby for another season or two though, so we'll have to wait to see how he develops.
Overall, Adam Jones is going to be very, very hard to replace. I hope that Samson's rise will coincide nicely with Adam's retirement, but it's not often things work out to neatly, so we'll have to wait and see. The depth is still lacking across the front row though. If Jenkins and James were injured, I wouldn't be totally comfortable with any of the options yet, and the same goes at hooker with if Hibbs and Owens got injured (although there's the emergency option of Matthew Rees there).
