The emergence of Cardiff City centre-back Lawlor is a prime example of what Adams is describing.
Having only turned 20 on 1 January, he already has more appearances for Wales’ national team than their Under-21s, earning the first of his three senior caps in September.
“It’s going have a huge impact on the performance of your under-21 squad when you’ve got between five and seven players being named in each [senior] international window who could be in an under-21 squad,” Adams added.
“Full credit to Craig for putting a lot of trust in young players and giving Wales an opportunity to keep building a successful squad for the future.
“The knock-on effect of course is then you’re going to be less competitive at under-21 level but the reality is our strategic goal is to consistently qualify for tournaments for our men’s and women’s senior teams.
“So there’s no specific KPIs (key performance indicators) around what our under-21 performance looks like. The most important measure of success for our under-21 head coach is to graduate players through that system which obviously we’ve done relatively successfully in the last few years.”
As well as Lawlor and Cardiff team-mate Kpakio, fellow Bluebird Joel Colwill and Coventry City midfielder Kai Andrews all made their senior Wales debuts in 2025 and are all still eligible to play for the Under-21s.
That has reduced the pool of players available to head coach Jones, but Adams added: “That’s not an excuse for some of the performances.
“I think the Belgium game, losing by that number of goals, there’s obviously going to be a review into the tactical plan, how we set the team up to be competitive.
“Some of these under-21 squads are closer to our men’s senior team transfer market value, so there’s also got to be realisation that of course we want to be competitive every game – and we never give up, that’s our mentality as Welsh people – but there’s also a realisation that you’re playing against some of the best talent in European football.
“Their players have played 100 games, some played in Champions League games, whereas a lot of our boys are not playing in league football or they’re playing under-21s football, which we all know is not a good barometer for successful transition into international football.”