"Not Going to Make Excuses" – Lake Addresses Wales Air Miles Debate Ahead of Summer

Tuesday, 23 June 2026 at 18:58

byHarry Tovey

During the first period of the inaugural Nations Championship, Wales will be clocking up the miles as they will fly more than 12,000 miles in the space of a fortnight after facing Fiji.

This will pose logistical challenges for the national side, as after opening the tournament at Cardiff City Stadium against the Fijians, Wales will then travel to San Juan to face Argentina seven days later.

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After that, they will travel across five time zones to play the world champions, South Africa, in Durban to conclude the summer's action.

Welsh sides are now well used to travelling long distances due to the United Rugby Championship having four South African teams involved, but undoubtedly, for this crop of players, they haven’t experienced this much travelling in such a short period of time.

Wales captain Dewi Lake stated that there will be no excuses and will embrace the challenges of this fresh competition.

“It’s a new competition, and we’re expecting everyone to bring their best,” added Lake, who was sporting a cut above his right eye.

“Bit different from a usual summer tour where you go to one country, play three Tests and you’re quite settled where you’re at.

“We’ve mentioned the travel, but it’s something you can’t control.

“We’re not going to make excuses, and we’re excited to go.

“Fiji at Cardiff City Stadium is going to be class, and Argentina and South Africa gives us a chance to play two Tests against teams we met in the Autumn Nations to see how far we’ve come on.”

Captaining Wales Again

The Gloucester-bound player was announced on Tuesday afternoon as the national side’s captain, and perhaps came as a surprise with Jac Morgan back fit.

“It’s a massive honour,” continued Lake, who captained Wales during the 2026 Six Nations.

“Always is to captain Wales and wear the red jersey.

“We’ve got an incredible leadership group, Full of leaders after the past couple of campaigns – Daf, Jac, Tomos, Josh Adams – so it won’t be a job I’ll do alone.”

Barbarians Perfect Opponents Ahead of July Fixtures

Lake, along with Morgan, will be unavailable to play in fixtures such as Saturday afternoon's match against the Barbarians due to playing in the Gallagher Prem next season.

The fixture against the Baa-Baas provides Wales with the perfect opportunity to experiment while also getting back into rhythm ahead of the fixtures in July.

Wales head into the contest following a return to winning ways and ended their Six Nations losing run as they defeated Italy in their last game.

That triumph ended the losing drought, but also reduced the pressure on this new tournament.

Albeit an almost different squad this week, the Barbarians come into the fixture after shipping 80 points against the Springboks last Saturday.

For Lake, he insisted that this fixture against the invitational side is one that Wales can set a marker ahead of facing Fiji seven days later.

“We’ve spoken a lot about picking up from where we’ve left off,” he said.

"It’s not a feeler kind of game. We want to set a marker down early. We got to a good place at the back end of the Six Nations in those last three games, and it’s about starting where we left off.

“We are going to have to adapt, and there might be trial and error around some things, but defensively and set-piece, we took massive strides forward.

"It’s about targeting certain things, whether it’s defence or attack. It’s a Test match, but within that, we are targeting certain things we want to see more of.

“We know the quality in that side, and that it’s going to be a bit chaotic, so we’ll be ready for that as well.”

Facing Mentor North

One of the players lining up to face Wales will be retiring great George North, who will play his last professional game for the Barbarians at Allianz Stadium.

North called time on his international career in 2024, after winning 121 caps for his country and claiming a number of Six Nations titles and two Grand Slam titles.

The 34-year-old was spoken of fondly by Lake, who highlighted the influence he has had on his professional career from the sidelines.

“Be a strange one (facing North),” added Lake.

“George and Lyds (Dan Lydiate) did a massive amount for me throughout my career, especially that year we spent together injured.

“Really taught me about what being a pro was about.

“Nice, but not nice, to go up against George, but he’s been an incredible operator for Wales. Amazing way to send him off, play against him one last time.

“I learned so much from him about off-the-field stuff. Looking after your body, how you apply yourself off the field as well as on it.

“At nineteen or twenty, you don’t think about that so much, but he helped me invest in myself and my career, and taught me a lot.”