For Dewi Lake, being asked to captain Wales against the Barbarians and into the inaugural Nations Championship is a big endorsement of his leadership.

The Ospreys hooker has gone from raw prospect to part of the national side’s core leadership group in just four years, sharing that burden most notably with Jac Morgan as Welsh captaincy has evolved in the last couple of years.

With injuries affecting both, but the duo now each back fit, Lake has got the nod from Steve Tandy ahead of his great friend.

“There’s an absolute honour. It always is to captain Wales,” he says.

“But I’ve got an incredible leadership group in this group now as well.

“We’re probably quite full of leaders in this group now, after the past couple of campaigns – Daf [Jenkins], Jac, Tomos [Williams], Josh Adams – so you know it won’t be a job I’ll do alone.”

In recent seasons Wales have deliberately spread responsibility: from the long reigns of Alun Wyn Jones and Sam Warburton through to a more collective approach, with Morgan and Lake elevated as young co-captains for the World Cup.

That shared model is exactly how Lake still views the role.

“Me and Jac, we’re lucky, we’ve got an incredible relationship, on and off the field,” Lake explains.

“Either way that it went, the other one of us was always going to be full of support for the other. We’ve co‑captain before, he’s been captain, I’ve helped, I’ve been captain, he’s helped.

“We don’t look at it as it’s me, not him. It’s the two of us together.”

The message from Tandy’s camp is that this is no exhibition. Yes, it is the Barbarians, with all the romance and chaos that entails, but internally this is framed as a continuation of the progress made at the back end of the Six Nations.

“We have spoken a lot about picking up from where we left off,” Lake says.

“It’s not like a feeler kind of game where you feel things up and then pick it up. We want to set a marker down early, and I think we got to a really good place back end of Six Nations, probably those last three games, and for us it’s about starting where we left that off.”

For Lake, that means nailing the nuts and bolts.

“Defensively we took massive strides forward, set piece took a massive step forward,” he adds. “Those things will definitely be to pick up where we left off.”

Doing that against the Barbarians is never straightforward. Lake knows what is coming at Twickenham on Saturday.

“Yeah, we know it’s going to be chaotic, I think is the word for it,” he admits.

“For us it’s about targeting certain things we want to see come out of the game, whether that’s certain things in attack, certain areas in defence we’ve really pinned down to target for this game.

“Our game plan’s not going to change, our processes will stay the same – for us it’s a test match.”

Within that structure, there is room to experiment and stress‑test ideas before a demanding summer against Fiji, Argentina, and South Africa.

“There’s probably certain aspects within that that we’re targeting – what we want to see more of, or we want to see how this goes,” Lake explains.

“We know the quality that is within those sides and that it is going to be a bit chaotic, so we’d be ready for that as well.”

That chaos should be ideal preparation for what follows.

Wales are about to embark on a new tournament in the Nations Championship that takes them to Argentina and South Africa in quick succession, a far cry from the old model of a single destination summer tour.

“It’s a new competition, and we’re expecting everyone to bring their best,” Lake says.

“It’ll be a bit different from a usual summer tour where you go to one place and play three Tests and you’re quite settled in. We’ve mentioned the travel, but that’s kind of out of our minds.

“We’re not going to make excuses.”

Layered over all of this is the emotion of facing George North in Barbarians’ black and white stripes as he winds down a great career against the team he played for over 100 times.

“Yeah, it’ll be a strange one,” Lake admits.

“George and Lyds [Dan Lydiate] did a massive amount for me throughout my career, especially that year we spent together injured, they helped me a lot”

For Lake, the essence of the job is still simple: keep Wales moving forward.

“If you didn’t love this job and what you do, you wouldn’t be here,” he says.

“We’re excited first and foremost for this weekend, and then another chance to prove how much we’ve come on in those two campaigns.”

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