White set for Wembley date with Kiwis (From Runcorn and Widnes World)

White set for Wembley date with Kiwis

2:36pm Thursday 3rd November 2011 in Vikings news

NEW Vikings signing Lloyd White has recovered from injury and will be able to take part in Wales’ second Gillette Four Nations match against New Zealand at Wembley Stadium on Saturday (kick-off 1pm).

He and Chris Beasley and Peter Lupton are named in Iestyn Harris’ 19-man squad to take on the Kiwis with just Aled James, who played in last week’s defeat to England, missing out.

This is the only change to the 19-man squad declared for last week’s match, with Jordan James recovering from a head injury, obtained after only eight seconds against England last week that saw him most of the game.

Both White and Lupton were named in the squad last week but hamstring injuries from the Ireland friendly a week before meant that they missed out on being selected for the game itself.

Talking about White and Lupton, Wales assistant coach Barry Eaton said: “They both missed out on last week’s game and we had a long day’s travel on Wednesday down from Wrexham to London which hindered our training schedule. They’re having extensive treatment and hopefully they will pull through and play on Saturday.”

Wales will hope to improve on their completion rates for the New Zealand match. They had just one set of six less than the English last Saturday but had just a 63% completion rate compared to England’s 81%.

“It’s an area that we want to improve on,” Eaton said. “We’ve been working on it and talking about it. We’re putting things in place with our structure with the ball. We need to make improvements this week to be able to compete with New Zealand.

“The match this Saturday is very big for us. We’ve a number of players who have never played at Wembley. It’s going to be an exciting occasion and everybody is looking forward to it.”

The Four Nations tournament heads to Wembley Stadium on Saturday November 5 when Wales face New Zealand at 1.00pm before England clash with Australia at 3.30pm. Tickets for the Wembley double header cost from £25 adults and £10 concessions. A family ticket giving admission to two adults and two children costs just £55.