Dan Biggar sees promising signs with Warren Gatland’s Wales rebuild

Dan Biggar believes Wales have something to build on after displaying “enough promising signs” during their Australia tour.

A 2-0 series defeat against the Wallabies this summer extended Wales’ losing run to nine Tests – one short of equalling the record sequence in 2002 and 2003.

And autumn series opponents Fiji, Australia and South Africa suggest that life is not about to get any easier for Warren Gatland’s team in November.

Wales were without a number of key players in Australia – proven performers like Josh Adams, Tomos Williams, Will Rowlands, Adam Beard, Jac Morgan and Taulupe Faletau – and a continued emphasis on youth saw prospects such as Cameron Winnett, Ben Thomas and Archie Griffin maintain their development.

“Wales are clearly in a transition period, with the amount of players they have lost, are injured or unavailable,” former Wales captain Biggar told the PA news agency.

“I do think Warren is going with the mindset of building depth and exposing players with a World Cup plan.

“And I think there were some positive signs in that Test series. I thought Ben Thomas looked quite comfortable in the number 10 shirt, Sam Costelow when he came off the bench did really well, and I thought the back-row worked incredibly hard.

“The bottom line at the minute is Wales are in a rebuilding phase, and I thought there were enough promising signs on that tour to have something to build on.

“You look at who is potentially going to be back available for the (first) autumn game against Fiji, players with experience who have been there and done it.

“These young boys at the minute are almost missing six or seven real senior guys to help them along.

“That’s what we had – the generation of people like myself, Leigh Halfpenny, Jon