WALES forwards coach Robin McBryde says hooker Elliot Dee is on the radar of the national management and expects other members of the Newport Gwent Dragons pack to soon provide selection headaches.

Warren Gatland has stuck with the tried and tested for the Six Nations, selecting Scarlets scrum-half Aled Davies as his only uncapped player in a 37-strong squad.

Dee has been touted as a Test player of the future but has to bide his time for now with Scott Baldwin, Ken Owens and Kristian Dacey picked as the options at hooker.

However, McBryde is impressed by the 21-year-old from Newbridge and expects his knocks on the door to become louder.

“Elliot is an excellent footballer, an intelligent player and the Dragons’ set piece has improved greatly,” said the forwards coach.

“He has a good mentor there in (former Wales hooker) Rhys Thomas and is on the radar, as are a number of the young Dragons forwards.

“Me and Rob (Howley, backs coach) were up there last week talking with Lyn and Kingsley (Jones, Dragons director of rugby and head coach) and if you look at the age profile and succession planning you can see that the pack coming through will be very strong over the next few years.

“There’s not just Elliot, there’s Leon Brown and Harrison Keddie with the Under-20s, Ollie Griffiths has been doing well while Cory Hill and Matthew Screech have really come on in the second row and have been learning from Rynard Landman.

“Those players are only going to get better and we had a good, positive conversation with Lyn and Kingsley about how we see them developing and areas that they need to work on. If they do that then they are not going to be far away.

“The unfortunate thing for those players is that at the moment we have got a very experienced bunch with Wales but players know they can’t relax because bright talent is hot on their heels.”

Dragons backs Hallam Amos and Tyler Morgan are already putting the pressure on more established talent after being selected in the Six Nations squad along with Taulupe Faletau.

Wing/full-back Amos is a contender for the tournament opener in Dublin after last week’s try-scoring return against Castres from a shoulder injury suffered against England at the World Cup.

Centre Morgan could return from his own shoulder injury, suffered in the quarter-final loss to South Africa, against Leinster a week on Friday.

Morgan may well have to bide his time given that Jonathan Davies is back from a knee injury but attack coach Howley insists his World Cup exploits have put the 20-year-old from Caerleon right in the mix.

“We think that we have got strength in depth because Tyler’s performance against South Africa it was exceptional for a young kid who hadn’t trained for that week,” said the former scrum-half.