Ryan Jones and Stephen Jones both believe they will be fit for Wales’ World Cup opener against South Africa despite having played just 25 minutes of the warm-up matches between them.
The former captains each suffered calf injuries this summer, which restricted Ospreys back-rower Ryan to a brief substitute appearance against England at Twickenham, while his Scarlets namesake has not featured at all.
Wales have completed their World Cup warm-up matches and despite his lack of playing time the 33-year-old fly-half is confident his injury worries will be behind him in time to face the defending champions in Wellington on 11 September.
“The body will be fine and I’ll be good to go for that game,” said Jones, who is set to overtake Gareth Thomas as Wales’ record appearance holder during the tournament.
“I had done all the physical preparation but when it came to getting a bit of game time, I picked up the injury before that England game.
“That was frustrating and then when I thought I had got back for the Argentina game, I had a slight recurrence of the injury.
“It’s all good, to be honest. I’ve had some good news and hopefully will be back running in about seven or eight days. I’ll be back to full running and ready to go.”
Ryan Jones initially feared that injury would rule him out of the 30-man squad, as it did for the 2007 World Cup in France.
The Ospreys forward will finally have his chance to feature at the tournament and is sure that his calf problem will clear up in time.
“It’s fine,” he said. “The recovery has been a bit slower than I hoped but I’m feeling pretty good.
“We have a lighter week ahead as we want to build it up slowly, so it feels pretty good.”
