Wales head coach Wayne Pivac admits that multiple players may have leadership roles during the Autumn Nations Series in the absence of Dan Biggar.

Pivac believes that Biggar won’t be out for “too long”, but the fly-half was not going to be fit enough to be available for their opening three matches.

Legendary second-row Alun Wyn Jones was the captain before he suffered an injury, which saw the Northampton Saints playmaker given the job.

The 37-year-old could therefore take the responsibility once again but he is not guaranteed to start, having come off the bench in all three Tests in South Africa.

A tough schedule

“We hadn’t planned on changing the captain, but obviously with Dan’s injury that is something we will look at in the coming days,” Pivac said.

“With Dan, we would expect him to be playing by the end of the autumn series, but of course the last game is against Australia, so that rules him out.

“We haven’t selected him on that basis, but we don’t expect him to be out too long.

“There will be a captain for the series, but four Test matches is a big ask these days for anyone to start in all four. So there might be more than one, but we will have a captain and vice-captain.

“Dan offers a lot, not just on the park, but off it as well. Anyone who has played 100 Test matches does that.

“He is a big loss, but Gareth (Anscombe) was his understudy on the summer tour, if you like. He played very well in that second Test, the famous victory there (against South Africa).”

Injury has also ruled out Wyn Jones, Liam Williams and Josh Navidi, while Rhys Carre, Ross Moriarty and Gareth Davies are notable omissions.

“Rhys went to South Africa and was given a brief coming back on what we expected in terms of general conditioning and getting in the right shape to play international rugby,” Pivac said.

“He has fallen short of that. He has got a lot of hard work to do with his club. He has had big moments, which is clear for everyone to see. But in Test rugby, it’s about 60 minutes or 20 minutes of intense rugby.

“The levels of conditioning you have to get to in order to survive in our camps, he hasn’t quite reached.

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“In terms of Ross, it was a tough conversation because he has just come back from injury.

“We know he is good. His target is the Six Nations. We’ve asked him to work on a couple of things in his game which he will go away and work hard on.”

Big opening match to the campaign

Wales begin their November Test series against New Zealand, the country of Pivac’s birth and a team the Welsh haven’t beaten since 1953.

“I am really looking forward to it. I know the players are looking forward to it, and it is an opportunity to create history,” the head coach added.

“We were hell-bent on doing that in South Africa, and we would love to create some history in that (New Zealand) match.”