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Wales boss Warren Gatland has floated the idea of Liam Williams providing fly-half cover after revealing he intends to take just two No.10s to the Rugby World Cup.

It has been one of the most-debated selection dilemmas Gatland has ahead of naming his final 31-man squad for the global showpiece on Sunday.

Jarrod Evans and Rhys Patchell are expected to get 40 minutes each against Ireland to stake their claims to becoming Dan Biggar's deputy in Japan.

"Probably at this stage it will be three nines and two tens," revealed Gatland. "We’ve said to the players all along that was probably in our thinking.

"If I’m honest probably the two tens at the moment (Evans and Patchell) thought that they were an outside chance and that we were taking Dan and Gareth.

"Unfortunately since Gareth has been injured the two players have realised they are really fighting it out. They’ve stepped up and it’s been good."

Should Wales suffer an injury to either Biggar or his back-up, they would then be very thin on the ground when it comes to replacements.

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It's a 12-hour flight from London to Tokyo, that crosses multiple time zones, so calling up a replacement would be cutting it fine.

Gatland also revealed that it would be his preferred option to rest a specialist fly-half in Wales' final pool game against Uruguay, assuming results beforehand had gone their way.

Hadleigh Parkes featured at 10 for the Scarlets at times last season but struggled in the position.

When asked if the centre was his back-up option, Gatland joked: "Not based on his performances for the Scarlets!

"We haven’t thought too much about it. We need to have a think. Liam Williams has done it in the past. We have some pretty good 9s who can go into that position.

(Image: Ben Evans/Huw Evans Agency)

"No disrespect to Uruguay but I’m hoping that if things go to plan and we’re in a good position we can cover that if we feel we need to rest one of the 10s.

"We could go with one of them on the bench and not bring them on as a safety. We will look at that. Maybe we need to do some training with Hadleigh there. He has covered 10 in the past."

Carrying just two players capable of playing in one position, especially with Wales have two particularly tight turnarounds during the tournament, may seem like a risk.

And it is but given that there are just 31 players allowed in World Cup squad, something has to give.

"The thing is you have to make a sacrifice somewhere in the squad," explained Gatland.

"We still haven’t decided in the squad if it’s five props or six or how many in the back three. Everybody who is picking a squad is going to be exposed in one area depending on which way you go.

(Image: Ben Evans/Huw Evans Agency)

"You have to take a little bit of a risk somewhere. If we do go with two 10s then we know the risk. Our plan all along was to play a pretty strong side in the first three games with the way the draw is and then make a lot of changes for the Uruguay game."