WALES coach Warren Gatland has defended his decision not to select any players from Newport Gwent Drag-ons for his squad for next month’s matches against South Africa and New Zealand.

Gatland has named six players from the Scarlets, though they finished ten points below the Dragons in the Magners League table, while the Dragons have to be content with three players among the standbys – Jason Tovey, Will Harries and Gavin Thomas.

“Which one of the Dragons should have been in the 27?” asked Gatland.

“Two of them are injured – Luke Charteris and Dan Lydiate, we don’t get a lot of choice in terms of the number of loose forwards so Rob McCusker comes in.

“Aled Brew probably would have been in the squad if he’d been playing for the last six weeks, so there’s an extra number there for your Dragons.

“And two players in the same positions from the Scarlets are in at hooker, so we have injuries there, and one or two of the others are established internationals.

“Yes, it’s great that the Dragons have had a good year, they’ve done better than the Scarlets.

“But I don’t go down there when I pick the squad and say ‘hang on, I’ve got six Scarlets and I haven’t got any Dragons, I’d better drop one or two Scarlets and put a couple of Dragons in to keep people happy,’ that’s not my job.

“If I was worried about it and I did that, I’d make those decisions to keep people off my back.”

Gatland later named other Dragons players injured who could have been considered, especially prop Hugh Gustafson and No 8 Joe Bearman.

Backs coach Rob Howley refused to answer why the Dragons players had been overlooked, referring that question to Gatland.

And the former scrum half got in a tangle about Dragons No 9 Wayne Evans and his exclusion, claiming he was on the list of standbys when he isn’t.

“I wouldn’t say he hasn’t got a sniff, I think that’s slightly unfair. He’s on standby, he’s on standby behind Martin Roberts isn’t he?” he said.

When it was pointed out that Evans is, therefore, on standby for the standby after enjoying his best season, Howley replied, “That’s fair. How old is Wayne?” “Quite young - 25,” came the reply, to which Howley answered, “We feel at this moment in time Tavis (Knoyle) would be one of the scrum halves in front of Wayne.

“I totally understand the perspective of many people who have looked at the squad in terms of the lack of Dragons players.

“Players who were close to selection are injured, not to mention Luke Charteris, Dan Lydiate and Aled Brew.

“Aled last played on March 31 and would have been really close to our selection. Unfortunately, with the games we have coming up you can’t be out of the game for eight or nine weeks and then come back to fitness and play in a Test.

“Look, Wayne has been close to selection over the past 12 months. He had a bad injury and was out for a period of time, he only came back just before the Six Nations started.

“I’ve been with Wayne with Cardiff Blues and we are happy with where he’s at, he’s doing particularly well. He just has to play consistently now, week in week out with the Dragons.

“At the moment we have Martin Roberts on standby. He will be hugely disappointed not to be in the squad, but we’ve seen him in our environment, we want to see Tavis Knoyle in our environment now, he’s been on the age-group pathway and we feel he has something to offer.”

When Howley was asked how come the Dragons hadn’t got any players in the squad compared with six from the Scarlets, he replied, “You can ask that question to Warren Gatland.”