What happened to the players Wales suddenly just stopped picking and the reasons they aren’t selected any more

“Has Shontayne Hape been dropped,” asked a journalist.

“No, he hasn’t been selected,” came Martin Johnson’s reply during his tenure as England head coach. It’s the way he tells ’em, except the beetle-browed old bruiser was speaking without a trace of a smile on his face.

When should a player become concerned about not being picked by his country? When is a player axed or simply not selected? Or is it always right for an individual to be a tad worried if someone takes his Test shirt?

Ask Rhys Webb, perhaps. He hasn’t started a game for Wales in 22 matches. His response has been to hit a rich vein of form with his region, the Ospreys. Calls for him to figure in Wayne Pivac’s squad once again have become ever louder, but so far the head coach has declined to heed them.

Webb isn’t alone among the wilderness gang. We look at his situation and that of others Wales just stopped picking and ponder why they no longer figure.

The Lions scrum-half hasn’t started for Wales since the friendly against France in October 2020. Since then Wayne Pivac has used four other nines, despite Webb playing some of his best rugby for the Ospreys.

What’s it all about? Potentially, the Wales selectors have factored Webb’s age into their calculations — he’ll be 34 when the next World Cup unfolds. Pivac already has a number of seasoned stars in his squad; maybe he feels adding another would be one too many.

Or perhaps he still holds Webb’s words against him after the No. 9 was left out of the set-up for the 2021 Six Nations. Explaining the omission, the head coach said at the time: “I think Rhys has talked about not wanting to be a number three and Lloyd (Williams) is a perfect number three for us.”

But what is indisputable is that Webb has been in