Warren Gatland takes to the air as Wales's head coach with 13 Ospreys in his starting line-up against England at Twickenham on Saturday, the greatest representation from one club that has ever been assembled for the national cause.
The previous record was set in 1948 when Wales went to Twickenham armed with 10 Cardiff players, all of whom survived for two more games, but in those days the selectors had a working base of 16 clubs rather than the present format of four regions and an English outpost.
The Llanelli wing Mark Jones and the Cardiff flanker Martyn Williams are the only non-Ospreys, with the Llanelli scrumhalf Dwayne Peel unavailable through injury.
Gatland is learning from a mistake he feels he made as Ireland coach at the turn of the decade.
"Munster were the best team in Ireland then but we mixed and matched when it came to selection, and that was wrong," he admitted. "We should have reflected the form side in the country. The side for Twickenham is not about where players are based but form. The Ospreys have done well in their two cross-border tournaments this season and there are not 13 players from one team by design."
The selection also reflects the short timespan Gatland, the fifth Wales coach to start a Six Nations in seven seasons, and his defence coach, Shaun Edwards, have had to work with their new charges, this week and last.
He is looking for familiar combinations with the front row, second row, half-backs and centres all used to each other, and as the Swansea-based Ospreys are the one team in Wales to have adopted the blitz defence system favoured by Edwards, it is not fanciful to assume that Wales will be blitzing at Twickenham, although the players were insisting yesterday they had been working on a drift defence.
Gatland took a training session with the Ospreys players before their Heineken European Cup match against Gloucester this month. "He worked with the forwards and really got stuck in," said the outhalf James Hook. "There were a few scuffles among the boys and he got them to show how much they wanted it. There has been a greater intensity in training with Wales and that has provided a sharp focus."
The wing Shane Williams, the smallest player in the side at 5ft 7in and 12st 12lb, has been given special defence sessions by Edwards.
"He is very intense and emotional," said Williams. "He has had me working with the back row and the centres, and the work last week was very physical: we battered hell out of each other and Shaun joined in. It was the hardest I have ever trained.
"We know how physical England are and we have to be able to compete. They had a good World Cup and we didn't, but we have to move on and there are no ghosts haunting us."
