OLLIE Griffiths suffered more Wales misfortune after the Dragons' coronavirus outbreak denied the explosive back rower an autumn call-up.

Head coach Wayne Pivac called up Cardiff Blues flanker James Botham on Monday because of injury concerns over Ross Moriarty (ankle) and Josh Navidi (concussion)

The uncapped 22-year-old leapfrogged Griffiths and Taine Basham in the pecking order because the Dragons were in isolation for 14 days after advice from Public Health Wales.

The region return for training at their Ystrad Mynach base this morning but it has come too late for Griffiths to get a chance to push for a second cap to add to his brief appearance against Tonga in 2017.

The 25-year-old from Newbridge returned from a summer hamstring injury superbly in the Guinness PRO14, standing out in the losses to Ulster and Munster.

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His efforts in defeat were so striking that he is second in the PRO14 stats for turnovers with six despite playing just two fixtures when some rivals have featured in six.

Griffiths has also made 32 tackles, racked up 29 carries and offloaded four times to put himself back on the Wales radar.

But after previously being hindered by injury and Wales' depth in the back row, the Dragons talisman has now been scuppered by coronavirus.

"We have some really good talent there but that lockdown prevented anybody from being called up from that region," said forward coach Jonathan Humphreys, who saw Griffiths at close quarters when he featured in the uncapped fixture against the Barbarians in November 2019.

"Ollie and Taine are two players who have been with us before and are very impressive players. You talk about athleticism and they are players that can live at international level, so they would certainly have been people that we might have called in.

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"We are pretty excited about the amount of young back rowers that we have out there. It looks good in that department for us."

Abrasive Dragons back rower Moriarty has missed Wales' fixtures against France, Scotland and Ireland with an ankle injury suffered in training.

Five of his Rodney Parade teammates are in the mix for Saturday's Autumn Nations Cup fixture against Georgia in Llanelli – hooker Elliot Dee, tighthead Leon Brown, flanker Aaron Wainwright, centre Nick Tompkins and full-back/wing Jonah Holmes.

Dee and Wainwright came off the bench in Dublin last Friday but Brown is only now in contention after recovering from a blow to the knee on Dragons duty.

The 24-year-old prop came off the bench in all four Six Nations games before lockdown but Samson Lee, Dillon Lewis and Tomas Francis have featured on the right of the front row so far this autumn.

"It's been frustrating for me and Leon," said Humphreys. "He picked up a medial ligament injury but has been back in training for the last two-and-a-half weeks, so hopefully we will see him come into contention.

"Leon, Rhys Carre, Dillon Lewis - they are young players who we have a lot of belief in to take us forward.

"For international rugby, they are young and there is a little bit of inexperience but we have to get them through and fast forward their development.

"They can only learn from being out there and experiencing what international rugby is all about."