DRAGONS hooker Elliot Dee will win his 11th cap for Wales against Scotland at Principality Stadium on Saturday after Scarlets rival Ryan Elias was released for regional action.

Dee made his Test debut against Georgia last autumn and after making another cameo in the win against South Africa went on to become a firm fixture in Warren Gatland's matchday squad.

The 24-year-old from Newbridge established himself as Ken Owens' deputy in the Six Nations and earned a first international start against Italy.

When the Lions ace was rested, Dee wore 2 on his back in the summer success against the Springboks in Washington and first Test win against Argentina before coming off the bench for Elias in the series clincher against the Pumas.

Gatland named three hookers in his squad for the autumn clashes with Scotland, Australia, Tonga and South Africa in Cardiff and it is Owens and Dee that will have first crack.

Elias, who scored the winning try against the Boks in America in June, will instead by heading north to feature for the Scarlets in their Guinness PRO14 encounter with Edinburgh at Murrayfield on Friday.

"Ryan has been asked to have some game time this week," said Wayne Pivac, who will succeed Gatland after the World Cup.

"Anybody who is released by Wales we are happy to help, to give some game time he needs."

Wales name their team to face Scotland on Thursday with five other Dragons in contention – lock Cory Hill, tighthead Leon Brown, back row forwards Ross Moriarty and Aaron Wainwright and centre Tyler Morgan.

Hill, captain at Rodney Parade, was the sole player to feature in all 12 internationals last year but is under pressure for his spot from Jake Ball.

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The powerful Scarlets lock is fit again after returning from a dislocated shoulder suffered against New Zealand last autumn.

Hill came off the bench and his progress led to him cementing his spot next to captain Alun Wyn Jones in the boilerhouse. Ball is hunting him down after earning a return to the Wales squad.

"I am just happy to be back, I am walking around with a smile on my face," said the 27-year-old. "It's great to be back and it makes all that period of rehabbing worth it.

"Hopefully I get a chance to wear that red jersey again and put my best foot forward. It's a big year (with the World Cup in September) and I have a lot of things I want to achieve in this game.

"The guys that stepped in did really well. I look back on when I came through and Ian Evans got suspended and that opened the door in.

"That's the way rugby works. It goes round and your job is then to chase someone, do as well as you can and hopefully get in there."

Ball's shoulder did at least have the consolation of allowing him to get in tip-top condition for the build-up to Japan 2019.

"We used that period really well and trained really hard," said Ball. "I am feeling in a very, very good place physically.

"I had played a lot of rugby up until that time with quite a lot of games in a short space of time. We did quite a lot of explosive training and speedwork, instead of a weights session on a Thursday it was explosive power, jumping and sprinting.

"I got some big gains and improvement because the toughest thing when you are playing is maintaining size and mass; playing week in, week out you pick up bumps and some weeks you can't train certain areas.

"Pick up a shoulder knock and you can't train upper body, get a dead leg and you can't do lower body.

"You get a chance to put on some decent size and get leaner whereas it's more difficult to do that when playing."